First Day of Rain

We've been traveling for 43 days (over 14, 000 kms) now and today would be the first day we would say was a rain day.  The morning started with a thunder and lightning shower in Albert Lea and tonight while I am writing this we are enjoying some thunder and lightning in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin.  We have arrived in our 10th state.

Welcome to Wisconsin - our only photo today

After getting going this morning we hit the road unsure of where we were going to go.  It pretty much rained on and off the entire day so we just took our time and drove through Minnesota.  We were going to take highway 16, which is a scenic byway in Southeastern Minnesota which we were told was a beautiful drive.  With the low cloud cover and rain, we decided to stay on the much straighter I-90 and make our way into Wisconsin.  After crossing a bridge we were in Wisconsin and made our way to the visitor information centre.


We learned that in Wisconsin Dells, which is about an hour from the border, they are known as the waterpark capital of the USA and were ranked the #1 vacation destination in the US in 2009.  We decided to stop there to see what it was all about but in the pouring rain, there wasn't much happening at the parks - though they were very big.  The city was full of people walking around and almost every hotel had their own waterpark.  I'm sure the parks are great but I doubt they aren't nearly managed as well as Magic Mountain in Moncton which our wonderful neighbours and friends the Jelleys own and operate.  The kids were talking about going there once we get home.


Because it was raining Tanya decided to take in the factory outlets and I took the kids to the Library where we researched some of our next locations, read some books and played on the computers.  After a few hours we continued down the road to the next factory outlet location in Johnson Creek and stopped here for the night.  We got some stuff for supper, the kids and I went to the pool and Tanya checked out the 58 factory stores across from the hotel.  


Tomorrow we'll head into Milwaukee and then make our way to Tanya's cousins Chad's house.  We're looking forward to visiting with Chad and his family.  Happy Birthday goes out to our niece Jacklyn and Happy Anniversary to my brother Michel and his wife Jen and to my cousin Beth and her husband Doug.  We only posted the one picture, because that's the only one we took today.


Later,
Francois