Travel Day 3: Minnesota

Approximately 300 miles to get to Auntie Marg's house to see the Perkins family.  Piece of cake!

Leaving Rockford we drive straight through Wisconsin.  No stops.  None.  Well, just one but it's for gas and a new drink called "Red Bull".  I'm going to find these very important for survival in the next couple days.

We see the Wisconsin Dells signs and advertisements along the highway.  "Can we stop!?!?" asks Jaik.

"No."

Travel Day 2: Ohio to Minnesota, almost.

Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin... let's just call the whole place "Ohiowa".

Parked outside the WalMart in Elk Grove, IL.

We are behind schedule and it's only our second day of driving.  Personally I'm exhausted.  I'm not tired from the drive the night before.  I'm not tired from staying in a hotel.  I'm tired from spending the last week packing the house, and the week before that worrying about packing the house, and the week before that worrying that I might be worrying too much.  I am suffering from anxiety induced exhaustion.  This is not a good mental state to be in before driving through what may be the three most boring states in the country.

Starting out at about noon is just fine with me.  Let's find coffee.  Then let's find some more coffee.  Repeat.  Rest stops have Starbucks!  So we will stop at every single one, they're only 30-40 miles apart.

After stopping in Gary, Indiana for dinner we start driving the final stretch of the day. Until we get to the north side of Chicago I spend the whole time on the iPhone headset talking to Expedia.com.  The hotel we booked earlier is full but can put us in their "sister facility" with a double bed and pull out couch - just no dogs.  That doesn't work.  Nearly an hour later we have a solution.  By this time we are through Chicago but had to pay at about a dozen toll booths on Interstate 294.  If we are lucky we might get to Wisconsin!

We're not lucky.  We're tired.  Once we get on Interstate 39 northbound it's one lane with a concrete wall on the left and reflective orange cones along the right.  This goes on for nearly 30 miles.  Now we are in Rockford, Illinois.  Done.

Check in to a dirty "Sleep Inn", hit the sack, wake up to realize the restaurant across the street is a strip club.  Get me out of here.

Travel Day 1: Emmitsburg, MD - Newcomersville, OH

Late start, thunderstorms, and a need to get comfortable driving a fully loaded 20' U-Haul put us behind schedule before we could even start.

Instead of reaching Toledo, Ohio or Indianapolis, Indiana, we settled for a short 5 hour drive to Newcommersville, Ohio just outside the northern West Virginia panhandle.

Stopping at a truck stop, which may have been the setting for countless horror movies, we fired up the Expedia.com app on the iPad and found a pet friendly Hampton Inn 10 miles off the highway.

Exhausted from a week of packing we crashed for the night and decided to sleep in the next day so we could make it to Minnesota by Sunday instead of Saturday.  The best part of the day was learning to drive the "Big Rig", or at least I thought it was a big rig until I pulled into a truck stop and realized I was really just driving a big van.

Leaving Emmitsburg

With the U-Haul in the driveway, the house nearly emptied out, and the kids eager to hit the road, we went and spent the night at our neighbor's house!

Settlement and closing on the house went through on Friday morning, June 28th.  Our plan to leave by noon was delayed like a NASA mission as thunderstorms rolled in and a few last minute changes had to be made to our bicycle rack.

Thanks to the help of Jes at Gettysburg Bicycles, we mounted a new rail on the truck allowing all five bikes to make the journey westward.

Buttercup settled in to her spot in the back seat of the Tacoma.  Laila saddled up in the U-Haul with Dad.  And Jaik joined Linda in the pickup as we pulled out of town.  The family bet was made as to who would cry first, and Daddy lost.  While driving over Sidling Hill into the setting sun, Western Maryland said goodbye to the Hakkarinens and the Piedmont Plateau faded away in the rear view mirror.  Friends, family, the Baltimore Orioles and the Chesapeake Bay will be here when we visit, but they wouldn't be coming with us.  Laila read a letter written to her by Ms. Sarah, our neighbor, friend, and Elementary School P.E. teacher as our eyes welled up and that tell tale lump in the throat began to form.  We were leaving, and it was real.