Chicago!

After Thursday's heat I never thought it would happen but we made it all the way to Chicago Friday night. A 700 mile day!

We drove away from our motel in Chamberlain, SD at 6:33AM. It was already pretty warm, which didn't seem like a good omen.

We realized it was going pretty well when we had about 300 of our 500 mile goal for day the under our belts. We figured if we worked in a swim in the afternoon then we could do the final few hours to Wheaton, IL. We checked the atlas and found Mirror Lake State Park in the Wisconsin Dells. We called and made sure they had swimming.

Then it was back to powering through the miles. I moved the roof cargo bag inside the van yesterday when I got tired of fighting the strong headwind. Today without the headwind Ruby was flying along smoothly at 75mph (the speed limit all the way from Idaho to Wisconsin).

It was only 86 degrees in La Crosse at 3:00; 10 degrees cooler than yesterday and significantly more tolerable in the van.

We got to the lake about 4:45 and had a very pleasant swim for an hour. Three more hours of driving and we were at Uncle Gary and Aunt Kathy's home at 9:15 PM.

We're back on schedule!