blatant random silliness

Day 3: Wisconsin to Minnesota

Click here for all of the photos from our day.

My busy boy in the wee small hours of the morning.


Playing at the play area in the West Town Mall in Madison.

Yesterday started early at our hotel room in Middleton, WI.  Even though we had an early start, we took our time getting ourselves together and out of the hotel.  Our first stop was the West Towne Mall in Middleton.  We were going to see a friend from college who works at the Apple Store.  But, unfortunately, she had to leave work early and we didn't get to see her.  We did get to see the shiny new iPads though :)  And the mall had a fun play area for Dylan as well. After letting him climb around a bit, we got back in the car and headed into downtown Madison to see the capital building.  I'm glad we did.  Madison's downtown area is situated between two lakes and when you come across the bridge there is a lovely view of the city.  The capital building itself is impressive and the tilework inside is spectacular.

Downtown Madison as seen from across Lake Monona.


The capital building.


Inside the capital building.


Denny and Dylan check out a really neat mailbox.

We asked the capital tour guide for a lunch recommendation and he sent us over to the Old Fashioned.  Denny and I both had the house hamburger - a tasty burger topped with Wisconsin cheddar, applewood smoked bacon, red onions and a soft fried egg.  Mmm, mmm, good.  Denny had his with fried Wisconsin cheese curds, ooh those are evil good.  Later in the day Denny commented "Wisconsin cheese curds are just one letter a way from being Wisconsin cheese turds".  I laughed so hard I cried (or maybe it was the smell he let out in the car before making the statement that caused the tears in my eyes...we'll never know).  

Interesting snacks to this southern girl.


My tasty burger.


Is this love?

After lunch we headed back into the capital building (we were parked on the opposite side from the Old Fashioned, needed to get postcards and have a potty break before piling back into the car).  Dylan and I rode the elevator, which is always a fun diversion for a 3 year old (or any small child who likes to push buttons).  And then we were in the car and off again.

Here we are on the steps of the captial building.


Dylan and the super cool elevator.


And here's one more photo of the inside of the capital....a closeup of the dome.

We decided to make a pit stop in the Wisconsin Dells as it seemed like the appropriate touristy thing to do.  For those of you in the south, the Wisconsin Dells is akin to a touristy beach town.  Except it's full of indoor waterparks.  It has the requisite fudge, candy, taffy, kitcshy, tshirts, knick knack and other random stores.  It even has a Ripley's Believe it or Not.  My favorite thing was noticing that the Torture Museum was across the street from the Dells Bells Wedding Chapel.  It is worth noting that all of this is around a river that has carved interesting cliffs into the landscape.  We were able to walk to the overlook and take a few photos before our little guy asked for water (which was in the car) since the chocolate we gave him made him thirsty (it's imperative to buy chocolate at the chocolate shops in these towns cause it's always the "best").  After a quick stop to take a photo with Paul Bunyan (and eat more chocolate) we took to the road again realizing we were going to be getting in later than we had planned.  

The little town of Wisconsin Dells. (it's nuts!)


How much is that chocolate in the window?


The river and cliffs of the Wisconsin Dells (at least the ones closest to the road :)


Cracked us up that the Torture Museum was across the street from the Dells Bells Wedding Chapel.


It's Paul Bunyan!


And it's all you can eat!

Wisconsin has lots of farms along the highway (as does Minnesota, more on that later).  By the time we reached the Mississippi River, we'd passed a sign for the Ho Chunk Casino and Lamers Bus Lines.  We decided we really didn't want to go to a Casino where a "ho" blew chunks.  And any bus lines named "lamers" just had to be lame.  

Pretty scenery in Wisconsin.


The hills straight ahead are across the Mississippi River in Minnesota. Can you tell we've splatted lots of bugs on our trip so far?


Crossing the Mississippi into Minnesota.
 

An old barn in Minnesota.

We crossed the Mississippi into Minnesota and the land seemed to immediately change.  On the western side of the Mississippi the hills were larger for a bit before leveling back out into plains again.  With farms, lots and lots of farms.  Our little guy finally gave up and fell asleep around 6 in the car and we pulled into our hotel in Owatonna at 7.  We got him transferred to his bed with no problems (well, except that he decided being awake at 3 would be great).  We were disappointed with our Holiday Inn experience in Owatonna.  I picked this place because they had a Serengeti miniature waterpark complete with animal statues in the pools and a waterslide.  But, I found out upon checking in that they don't open the waterpark til 3.  Which would do us absolutely no good.  We were told to ask in the morning (this morning) if they would open it for us and they wouldn't.  So, we packed up and got out of dodge quickly.   More on that in my next post.  Stay tuned!

Day 2: Chicago, Lincoln Park Zoo, then off to Wisconsin

(There are lots of photos in the post, but more that I didn't post.  To see all of them click here.)

 That's some prime advertising real estate!

Off the highway and into the city.

On Day 2 we all realized we had Dylan's sniffles.  Which makes for a little slower going in the morning. We managed to get up, breakfasted, packed up and to the zoo by 11:30 (granted, we did have traffic on our way into the city and had to figure out where to park).    Chicago traffic on a Sunday was surprisingly thick.  Then again, the Lincoln Park Zoo was pretty crowded by the time we made it there.  

A piggyback ride made everything seem better.

Lets count the ponies.

We had a rocky start after leaving the car....Dylan wasn't very happy and had a meltdown.  But, once that was over with and we had a snack, life was much better and he really enjoyed the zoo.  First up were the farm animals.  We saw ponies, goats and cows.  Then, we went to the main part of the zoo.  Lincoln Park Zoo is lovely with flowers blooming all around.  They have a nice range of animals and we tried to see Dylan's favorites - the rhinoceros, the giraffes and the hippos.  Except they didn't have hippos (their website said they did, but the map at the zoo didn't have them listed).  But, they had a swimming polar bear and that was just as good.  Dylan also enjoyed riding the carousel and picked out the panda he wanted to ride.    

Dylan called these "yaks" which we thought was a pretty keen observation for a 3 1/2 year old. They are really part of the goat family and are called "Sichuan Takin".

"Hey Dylan, do you see that?" (I don't remember what we were looking at here)

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Dylan and Denny had fun playing with the camera while I went to get lunch (which by the way was really good for a zoo...they had lots of choices and delicous looking salads)

Dylan loved riding the carousel! He's been talking about it all morning.

   
What a cool carousel.

The black rhinoceros.

Dylan and Denny spot 2 giraffes.

Our favorite was the polar bear...I've never seen one swimming like this before (except on tv). Really beautiful!

Denny and Dylan walking through Lincoln Park Zoo.

After a fun time at the zoo, we headed back to the car.

Surprisingly, he didn't nap on our afternoon drive like I thought he would (he'd been up for a long, long time). Before heading north, we took a detour to see Lake Michigan and then drove through some lovely neighborhoods before finding the interestate again.

We were speculating about the interesting building out on the lake. Is that the Theatre on the Lake? If you know, please let me know. Thanks!

Lovely sky in Wisconsin. Not a great example of the green, though I bet there will be green soon enough in the field. Wonder what they will grow?

Northern Illinois is pretty flat. But, as we got closer to Wisconsin and crossed the border the scenery changed into rolling hills and lots of green. Dylan went to bed early, and Denny and I enjoyed takeout and caught up on some of our favorite tv shows before calling it an early night ourselves.  

We haven't quite decided what we want to do this morning.  I guess we'll figure it out in a bit!

Day 1: Saying goodbye to Dayton and hello to Chicago

 Dylan and two of his best buds, Jax and Mary-Clare

 MC cuddled up next to Dylan and then played hard to get when it came time for goodbye smooches.

After staying with our good friends Mary, Steve and Mary-Clare all week long, it was hard to say goodbye this morning.  Dylan was so comfortable at their house that he didn't ask to "go home" at all.  Sweet boy.  He had so much fun at Mary's house!  I don't know that he quite understands that this goodbye is different than other goodbyes.  It will probably be a long time before we see our Dayton friends again.  I'm so thankful for being able to keep in touch via Facebook and free long distance on cellphones.  It makes it so much easier to stay in touch when we move.  

This morning was spent packing up and getting the car ready for the start of our road trip.  After saying our goodbyes and making a couple of maintenance stops (gas and tire check, and of course Starbucks) we hit the open road on the way to Chicago.

 I bought this brown bear for Dylan and when Denny saw it he immediately made it our official "road trip to Alaska" mascot. He is riding proudly on the dashboard all the way to Alaska (or until Dylan spots him and wants to hold the brown bear. And I have a feeling after that he's gonna want a red bird, a yellow duck, a blue horse, a purple cat, a white dog, a black sheep and goldfish and a teacher. (if you don't get this, you may not have kids or have never read the book "brown bear, brown bear")

Despite Dylan's runny nose (that of course started yesterday), he was mostly a happy little traveller.  We crossed the state line into Indiana and our first stop was to see the giant candle just off the highway.  It was the Warm Glow Candle Outlet in Centerville, Indiana and served a triple purpose–bathroom break, sandwich making stop, and kitschy photo opportunity next to the really big candle.  Plus they had a koi pond!  

 Dylan and Denny sitting on the bench at the base of the really freakin large candle.

 The bathroom at the Warm Glow Candle Outlet.  Really, really cool as was the whole store.  Too bad it was really crowded or I might have wanted to look around more.  

 Denny and Dylan enjoying the koi pond. Taken with my iphone (as were a lot of these). I will get out big nice camera tomorrow, I promise (because this would have been so lovely dslr).

 One of Denny's favorite things today were the windmills in Indiana. There were lots and lots of these along the highway and as far as the eye could see.

Other than stopping for gas (and snacks - cheese, crackers and salami), and crossing into Illinois, the rest of our trip was fairly uneventful.  We checked into our hotel (The Marriott Oak Brook Hills Resort) where I got a special "romance package" that included champagne, truffles and free breakfast for only $10 more than the regular room price and searched for a nearby pizza place so that we could sample some Chicago pizza.  We ordered a "stuffed pizza" from Giordano's.  What a creation.  First, the aroma that came from the pizza box was heavenly.  The crust is flaky and layered, almost like a pie crust.  Then comes the meat, we ordered pepperoni and sausage.  There wasn't too much of it, (like the famed disk of sausage from another Chicago pizzeria, Gino's).  On top of the meat is a thick gooey layer of cheese and that is topped with their special tomato sauce.  The whole thing was just ridiculously good.

Yum! Too bad leftovers aren't really practical on a road trip. Although early morning cold pizza wouldn't be terrible :).

And now, as my husband says "it's 10:30 to our bodies".  This never fails to make me laugh.  I see time zones differently than he does...I want to adjust immediately and forget what time it is to my body.  And he will remember what time it is to his body for a week.  Good thing we are taking our time flitting from time zone to time zone then isn't it?

Tomorrow I have my fingers crossed for no rain so that we can visit the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Here's hoping!

One More Day

One more day and we'll be in on our way to Alaska.  I realize I haven't posted in a long long while.  So let me catch you up a bit on what's been going on with us since January.  The biggest news is that we are moving from Ohio to Alaska.  We've known for awhile, but didn't get our orders until the beginning of April.  Since then, things have been moving very fast.  Our stuff is all packed and with the movers now, and we've been living with our friend Mary's family for a week.  Tomorrow, we will start our 23 day venture to Alaska.  I'll be trying to post every day (or more realistically every couple of days) with photos and adventures from the road.

Here's a quick rundown of our past few months.  We enjoyed lots of snow this past winter and Dylan and I both experienced our first real sledding down a real hill.  Twas lots of fun.  Winter drug on for awhile, then we thought we were in spring, but the weather warmed up way too quick.  Then it was cold again.  And now we are getting spring weather.  Oddness here in Ohio.  I think Mother Nature was prepping us for the cold in Alaska.

I haven't blogged in quite awhile for several reasons.  The first was that I had a lot of design and photography work the past few months.  Which is good for me and my business.  The second has to do with Dylan.  He was diagnosed with PDD/NOS (Pervasive Developmental Delay/Not Otherwise Specified) back in December.  This diagnosis is considered an Autism Spectrum Disorder.  We went to the developmental pediatrician back in the fall after realizing that Dylan was different socially than his peers.  The really good news is that with Dylan's intelligence and language skills, he should do fine in the future.  We've already seen wonderful proof of this.  He started ABA therapy back in January plus he's been in an inclusive preschool class since November.  Both of these things have helped him tremendously.  His language usage and ability to answer questions and want to interact more with adults and other children has grown so much in the past few months.  It's taken me awhile to get to a place where I wanted to share about Dylan with everyone.  A lot of people are not well informed about Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders, and if I can do something to help with that, then I will.  Dylan is on the mild end of the spectrum and mainly has problems with language usage and social interactions.  As I mentioned above, he's improving every day.  The real thing to note here is that every child is different and this sort of diagnosis can mean different things to different families (just like "regular" kids).   We love and support Dylan no matter what, and are so thankful he is a sweet, loving, cuddly little guy who loves to laugh and learn.  This diagnosis has presented its own set of challenges for our move.  We've had trouble finding ABA therapy in the Anchorage area, but I did find a Early Language program at a speech school that looks good.  And I've been a bit worried about finding a good preschool for him....I hope that will be easier once we get to Alaska.

Now that I've mentioned his intelligence, I can brag a little bit.  Our little guy has an amazing mind.  His current obsession is letters and numbers.  He's been writing uppercase letters since last fall and as added lowercase letters over the past few months.  He can write all of them with no problem at all.  He even adds serifs to the letters to mimic the "Times" font in one of his books.  These days he's learning sight words and likes to write and spell the words he knows.   He also likes to draw pictures of the words he's learned.  (And he's just 3 1/2!)  He's a happy boy and he likes to ride in the car and sing, which bodes well for our trip.  

So, with all that being said, I'm going to pick up my blog from today and move forward with our trip.  Check back for news from the road!