PNW to the Berkshires: Chicagoland, Detroit, Indiana Dunes, Cedar Point and Lake Erie, Niagara Falls

While on the road we closed on our house. It has been a wild experience to buy a house, sight unseen, from across the country and on the road! We celebrated by hanging out and kayaking with the Wilmarth Tynas at a nature preserve in the Chicago suburbs. And then ice cream. Lots of ice cream has been consumed on this trip. It was great seeing friends in person for a few hours before hopping back on the freeway- we decided to not stay overnight in Chicago and got lucky with canceling a hotel reservation while confirming a second in Indiana.

Chicago traffic was traumatic for us when we lived there. While I miss the friends we made, I do not miss the hours and hours of just sitting, the inching along, the two times I watched active shooters from my car, baby Savannah screaming for food, or little Cassidy wetting her pants while potty training. Riding the trains and buses and rails was magical, driving was nightmarish and a huge contributing factor to our decision to leave. For this trip, our timing was such, that if we stayed overnight we would hit that traffic, and even as we left we still hit some of it! We stayed just over the state border and visited Indiana Dunes National and State Parks. The state park is surrounded by the national park. And the national park only happened a few years ago. Everyone is confused lololollol...We caught the sunset on the beach.

The next day we left I-90, veered north a few hours, and made it to Detroit! Matt was so excited to point out highlights from his childhood home and the kids were not impressed. hahahahaha.

Matt: And that's where my friends and I would shoot pool!

Kids: Uhh- ok.

We were able to have lunch with Matt's mom and go to the Detroit Zoo. We had dinner with some friends who we knew from Chicago (So crazy how they moved to the Bay Area and then just relocated to Michigan a month ago!) Highly recommend Woodpile BBQ. We stumbled upon a delightful bakery near the hotel.The following morning we had a quick visit with Matt's Aunt Mary Jo and his dad. And an incredible moment happened y'all. Cassidy has been crocheting for a little over a year, really getting into this hobby. Aunt Mary Jo gave Cass a set of crochet hooks from her great great grandmother Edith Flora Small Smith!!!!! Just, wow. And the family stories she shared were so wonderful, in particular about the family from Massachusetts.

A few hours later and we were back on I-90, headed to another one of Matt's childhood memories: Cedar Point. Nate is one Matt's oldest friends (I did not call y'all old, just stating the facts!) and Nate and Lindsey and their kids Olivia and Max joined us for a day of island hopping and a day of amusement park rides.

On the island of Put in Bay, there is a national park monument called Perry's Memorial. It is massive, over 300 ft tall, commemorating battle from 1813 where the colonial folx were mad because the indigenous peoples were working with the British in hopes of getting their land back, so the colonizers waged a battle, and then Canada got involved and the moral of the story is that nothing changed, the British- Canadians kept Canada, the colonizing "patriots" kept this part of the new "Americas" and the Indigenous folx continued to be screwed over. This was not lost on the kids as we walked through the visitors center. As the conversation got darker and I had no more spoons to navigate it, I distracted and deflected with, "Oh look- ice cream! Golf Carts!" And we moved on out of the center, and got a golf cart. Then toured the island on the cart, accidentally drove into Canadian lands, and visited some crystal caves. Then came lunch and ice cream. It was a day! lol.

Cedar Point was a hit with everyone! The kids convinced us to ride the water ride twice and everyone was soaked. Savvy laughed in my face when the second waterfall took me by surprise. Lindsey introduced us to the BEST frozen custard. The girls rode their first thrill seeker coaster. The Maverick is easily my favorite at the park. We were sad to leave early (4p-ish) but so thankful for our kids to hang out and for us to re-connect too! Cedar Point is only 9 hours away from our new home, I am hopeful another visit with the Milan family is in our near future.

About 4pm we hit the road, everyone was tired and ready to sit for awhile. Which was a good thing because we did not make it to Niagara Falls till close to 10pm. While in Buffalo we entered a storm of flying bugs. Not cicadas. I don't know what these things were. They coated the windshield and Matt had to pull over to clean the windshield. It was so gross. Seriously. Here's a picture before it got really bad!