more Day 2 ... Scenic Route to Madison

more Day 2 ... Scenic Route to Madison

 

Back in the car, and refreshed – kind of - after our beach excursion I announced “Might as well head straight north, up Lake Shore Drive – we’re right here.” 

“Go for it,” Brett said. Not exactly a vote of confidence.

Kids were in the back, fixated on their hand-held game “machines.”

 

                       Mike, Anna. Look.

It was the kind of “scenic” that Brett and I liked, cityscapes, neighborhoods, beautiful homes, and moving traffic. We implored the children to see the sights. “Look at that building – park – beach etc.”  They grunted, barely lifting their heads. “You’re missing everything!” Brett said.

“We’re not,” the kids responded. Again the raised heads, maybe two seconds.

 

Lake Shore Drive ultimately became Sheridan Road, also lakeside and northbound albeit not a speedway. Sheridan brought us through well kept neighborhoods, the campus of Loyola University and then Northwestern in Evanston. We gushed over the architecture and landscape declaring every so many blocks, “I could live here.”

 

No reaction from the kids.

 

                                This Road is Great

Not familiar with the road I was anxious about a possible disaster – dilapidated buildings, standstill traffic and window washers plying their trade. But Sheridan kept rolling, snaking its way north through small towns, through country woodlands and from time to time a peek at the Lake.

Sometimes it (Sheridan street signs) vanished (Where’d it go?) or changed names and just when we panicked, it would reappear, Sheridan Road once more - still pointing north. “This road is great,” I declared.

 

                                Military Only

 We passed the Great Lake Naval Training Center in North Chicago, slicing right through the base. Squads of uniformed sailors were out on the walks. Eventually the people thinned out it and it was just tan barracks-like buildings, then finally nothing. It was here the road widened, like a parking lot, deserted blacktop that appeared to have been hit with a wrecking ball. Was this a weapons test site?

 

“Better get out of here,” Brett said.     

 

“Yeah,” I said, but I resisted. I slowed down, barely rolling.  With 3000 plus miles still to go, turning back had zero appeal. “Forward only” was our motto, but any moment I was expecting a warning: “Military Personnel ONLY Beyond this Point.”  

 

I checked the rear-view mirror. Kids were still otherwise engaged. Torpedoes could have sailed by for all they knew.

 

But then the test site gradually faded. The surroundings slowly changed and we found ourselves squinting suspiciously at a line of warehouses (storage for torpedoes?). Then a miracle, an actual conventional street emerged  – Sheridan Road - believe it or not.

 

                           Where’s the Interstate?

 The Sheridan odyssey ultimately ended just across the Wisconsin border where we opted to take a chance on a due-west tilt. “We’re bound to hit the highway sooner or later – just head into the sun,”   I said, not at all sure.

 

The gods were with us though; soon we ran into our old friend I-94.

 

                       “Oh my God, it’s Pettit, the training center”

We were sailing now, northbound, then bending west at Milwaukee, where we got a nice view of the city, then passing the baseball stadium, its lot jammed for tonight’s game. “County Stadium” was my recollection of the Milwaukee Braves’ home field in the 1950s; now it’s the Brewers and Miller Stadium the sign said. "Makes sense," I thought.

 

But the highlight of the day was passing the Pettit National Ice Center - U.S. Olympic Training Facility just west of the stadium. Brett abruptly went into hockey mom mode and proceeded to rattle on about this for most of the next 100 miles. Not really sure about all she said but I wasn’t about to say, “What’s the big deal?” Not when she's in hockey mom mode. 

Next ... Day 3, 4, 5 - Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Rockies