Day 2-Road Trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks

So, after a good night of camping in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, we woke up and cooked ourselves some breakfast. The tire store wasn't going to be open until 9 am, so we thought we would go explore the park a little. Neither Kelly or I had ever seen any of the Great Lakes and now we had a chance to take a look at Lake Michigan!!

Here is what we saw.

It was sort of a gray morning, but we still had fun exploring. The shore of the lake was covered with smooth round stones. Here is the hubby skipping stones.

And the hubby collecting stones to make me something sweet.

And because I love fish, I can't forget this.

Eventually we made our way back to the tire store, thinking things would be quick. Not quite. We there much longer than we wanted to be, but we finally made back on the road.

Next state up, Illinois.

And then Iowa.

And Iowa was actually very lovely. Lots of rolling green hills. This is as far as we would make it on our 2nd day. We decided to set up shop at Lake Anita State Park. It was a week night, but there were a lot more people there than we would have thought, which was nice. Here is a picture of our campsite with our tent pitched.

A quick picture that evening of the view from our campsite.

And a picture of the hubby and I, happy to be on this great vacation together.

Here is the website to Lake Anita State Park in Iowa: http://www.iowadnr.gov/parks/state_park_list/lake_anita.html

I really have to commend Iowa's Department of Natural Resources. They had the best website as far as information for their parks go.

Up next, day 3, we make finally make it Wyoming!!

Day 1-Road Trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks

Kelly and I decided to leave early on the first day of our trip. We wanted to get as far as we could in the first day, since we were super excited about our trip. Also, we would have to stop a little earlier each day because we planned to camp along the way. I had planned out the route carefully, including what tolls we had to pay along the way. I had a list of all the state parks and KOAs along the way to make sure we had places to stop and camp along the way. Overall, hit should take us 3 days to get out to Wyoming.

We left about 4 am. First we hit Pennsylvania.

Next up was Ohio.

And then, Indiana.

And then trouble. We were almost out of Indiana and we got a flat tire. Big bummer. As we were unloading things out of the car to make it easier to lift, a Indiana State Trooper pulled up. In his possession, a hydraulic pump. He was super nice and helped us get the spare on our car. He helped us get back on the road, and we got off at the next exit. Luckily there was a gas station as soon as we got off. We asked them if there was a tire store nearby, and apparently there was one right around the corner. Super we thought. We would be off the road for a couple of hours while we got a new tire and be back on our merry way. Not so. Apparently, not many people in the small town we ended up in drove Toyotas. We were told that they would have to order a tire and it wouldn't be available until the next morning. Awesome. We had to stay the night somewhere, and none of the places I had planned out for camping was nearby. Kelly and I were debating about if we should just go ahead and get a hotel. I can't remember exactly how we found out, but we found out camping was nearby. And to our surprise, it was Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Yay!! We drove out there and set up in the Dunewoods Campground.

We cooked ourselves some dinner and took it easy that evening. So, we didn't get as far as we would have liked on the first day, but as a result we discovered a cool new park. 

Here is the website for Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore: http://www.nps.gov/indu/index.htm

Next up, day 2 of our journey.