July 6-7,2020

We continue heading west from N. Sioux City, SD heading for the Badlands. I have heard about this mysterious and rugged part of the Great Plains area of the prairie lands of the northwest since I was a kid. Stories of Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, herds of millions of buffaloes, and of course the American Indians, have been legend in this part of the country for hundreds of years. We were looking forward to seeing this part of American history.

As we were zooming west on I-90 in Tin Tin (our 24 foot Coachman RV) we suddenly saw a couple of giant statues on the side of the road.

It’s not every day that you see a giant bull’s head and a giant horse on the side of the road. So, we made a split second decision and yoked Tin Tin over to the exit about 1/4 of a mile from where we saw the statues.

We circled around the exit and saw a sign for Porter Sculpture Park, located in Montrose, SD. We head down the dirt road full of potholes and park Tin Tin. We get out and the first thing we see is a sign proclaiming that we are now looking at the World’s Largest Invisible Ball of Twine. Score! We saw the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball the day before in Iowa, now we get to see the World’s Largest Invisible Ball of Twine. Quite Impressive!

We are greeted by the park’s owner, Wayne Porter, who graciously takes our $20 to enter the park. We got to speak with him for a moment.

Wayne told us that he made all of the sculptures originally in his father’s blacksmith shop. He and his Dad moved the sculptures to this site about 20 years ago. He has been looking after them ever since.

This park is really amazing. Supposedly it is on the Time Magazine top 50 American roadside attractions. I believe it.

We continued heading west on I-90 and saw another interesting announcement. It seems that the only Corn Palace in the World is just up ahead in Mitchell, SD. What the heck, let’s see what this is all about.

As amazing as Porter Sculpture Park was, this Corn Palace was as disappointing. I expected to see a palace made of corn. Silly me. All we got was a kind of event hall with the facade made up of corn cobbs. Interesting, but not worth the 20 minute detour to see it. However, we now have seen 3 largest or onliest things in the world in the past 2 days. Go us!

One other unusual thing for the day is a place called Wall Drug. We have been seeing roadside signs and billboards for this place since Iowa. This was on I-29 heading north. We are now 300 miles away, on I-90 heading west. By now we have had to seen a hundred of these things. All a bit different, but consistent in theme. If you have seen the South of the Border billboards in South Carolina, you will know what I mean.

So, we make it to our RV park, the Minute Man RV Park (more on the name later), check in and decide to see what the heck this Wall Drug thing is. It is only about 10 minutes down the road from us off of I-90. We just have to find out what this is.

So, we head west again on I-90 and pull off into Wall, WY. After a few blocks and a few more signs, we finally arrive at our destination.

The whole building is divided into various shops and restaurants, like a upscale flea market on steroids. We wandered around and met a character or two.

After satisfying our curiosity, it is back to the Minute Man RV Park. As we head back, we see yet another sign for the worlds largest something. This time it is the World’s Largest Prairie Dog. Wow, we are killing the World’s Largest contest today. We have now seen the world’s largest popcorn ball, largest ball of invisible twine, largest prairie dog, and only Corn Palace in the world in the past two days. My, we are on a roll!

We finally get back to the Minute Man RV park. This was one of our less grand parks with limited amenities. It was also kind of run down.

The name Minuteman comes from the fact that the Minuteman Missile Visitors Center was just down the road. For you older folks, you may recall that the Minuteman Missile was the backbone of our strategic defense against the Russian nuclear weapons as part of the Cold War between our countries after World War II. This part of South Dakota was home to about 1,000 missile silos around the state in the middle of farmers fields and grazing areas. The visitors center down the road depicted the history of the era and Silo Delta-09, 15 miles down I-90 was kept intact with a training missile inside to show visitors how the real thing actually looked.

To me, the silo is another very cool piece of modern American History. From the cattle rustlers and gunslingers of the Old West to the threat of nuclear destruction in the modern era.

The next day it is off to Badlands National Park. This is a truly amazing place with incredible vistas from the canyons to the terraced hilly terrain.

The Badlands used to be the bottom of an inland sea that stretched from the current Gulf of Mexico up into present day Canada. It basically covered the entire mid western U.S. millions of years ago.

The bottom of the sea was built up over 75 million years and when the inland sea receded about 70 million years ago, it remained pretty stable. About 500,000 years ago climate change started to cause erosion of the area. The result is the dramatic peaks, valleys, channels, and strata layers that we see now.

This park is truly amazing. The various shapes, colors, contours, and strata are fascinating.

Map progress – N. Sioux City, SD to Badlands National Park, SD via Tin Tin.

July 3 – 6, 2020

We left Pikes Peak State Park in Iowa and continued heading west in Tin Tin (our 24 foot Coachman RV). We were heading for N. Sioux City, SD. Sioux City has a very unique distinction of actually existing in 3 states all at the same time. North Sioux City is in South Dakota; South Sioux City is in Nebraska, and Sioux City is in Iowa.

On the way to N. Sioux City, we saw a sign for the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball in Sac City, IA. It sounds quite silly, and once we saw it, it was quite silly, but it was still an interesting item to see along the highways and byways of the US. We stopped and checked it out and added it to our list of oddities we have seen in our travels.

We continued west and stayed in N. Sioux City, SD for a few days and therefore were able to add the state of South Dakota to our US map of states that we have on the back of Tin Tin. The rule in the Goodell Household (set by and enforced by my red headed wife and navigator, Andrea) is that we actually have to spend the night in Tin Tin in a state in order to add it to the map. I say if we drive through it, it should qualify, but I seem to have been overruled in that opinion.

N. Sioux City is a nice little town but with very few interesting things to see. Lewis and Clark went through the area on their exploration of the continental North America, so there is an exhibit regarding that, but it is not very extensive.

So, we headed north to the bigger town of Sioux Falls, SD.. Sioux Falls is quite large and a very industrial, bustling, town. We first went to Camping World to get some replacement parts for Tin Tin. As any RV’er knows; something is always breaking, and needing fixing or replacement on an RV (very similar to a boat). So, we got the parts we wanted and headed off to Falls Park. This area is what actually gave Sioux Falls it’s name. It is a series of pretty nice waterfalls on the Big Sioux River.

Back in the 1970’s, civic leaders developed a city park around it’s namesake falls in the river and made it quite a nice area to enjoy the scenic beauty of the falls, have quiet time, and commune with nature. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon there.

After our fun day at the waterfalls, we headed back to our KOA RV park in N. Sioux City. This park was pretty nice, well maintained and had some good amenities.

As it was the 4th of July, we were wondering about possibly seeing some fireworks somewhere around town. Turns out, we need not have to worry.

Literally, the house next to the fence that divided the RV park from the neighborhood, was owned by the owner of a local fireworks manufacturing company. Our neighbors in the RV park told us that this guy put on his own 4th of July fireworks show every year from his pretty big back yard.

It was quite a show. I have been to civic firework shows over the years that were not as good, or as long, as the one he put on for us.

Map progress – Pikes Peak State Park, IA to N. Sioux City, SD via Tin Tin.

July 2, 2020

We headed north west out of Chicago in Tin Tin (our 24 foot Coachman Prism RV), across the state of Wisconsin, to reach Pikes Peak State Park in McGregor, IA. The name is a bit confusing as it has nothing to do with the more famous Pikes Peak in Colorado, but it was an interesting place never the less.

Once we got into the town of McGregor, we noticed one of those strange sights that we like to see as we travel the roads of America.

Why is there a pink elephant on the side of the road you may ask? Good question. Turns out it is the theme of the Casino Queen Marquette gambling riverboat, docked here in town. It certainly catches your eye as you drive down the road. We reached the Pikes Peak State Park a few miles up river from the pink elephant.

The park featured some trails through the surrounding hills overlooking the Mississippi River. The Wisconsin River feeds into this part of the Mississippi as a tributary river as the grand old Mississippi heads to the Gulf of Mexico.

We did a bit of hiking to the scenic overlook in the park and then on to the Bridal Veil Waterfall. The waterfall was kind of disappointing as it was not too high, not too dramatic, and the water falling was not too plentiful. The paths were in good shape, although one member of the Goodell household (not me) kept complaining that the hills were too steep. We did see some wildlife along the trail, which was very cool.

The next day we visited the Effigy Mounds National Monument just a few miles away from Pikes Peak State Park. This park features Indian burial mounds that were built any where from 500 AD to 1250 AD. These mounds range from northern Iowa into Wisconsin and Nebraska. The builders were probably native Indians living in and around the banks of the Mississippi River and consisting on the fish, mussels, game, and other edibles existing around these fertile lands.

Once again, we had to do some hiking up some fairly serious hills to see these mounds. There might have been a few complaints about these hills along the way also.

The mounds were kind of hard to make out, though from seeing different perspectives of them on their website, we could kind of make out the shapes. The main ones are The Little Bear Mound and The Great Bear Mound, along with many other circular mounds. These mounds contain human remains that were either cremated, or buried in various positions as signs of respect. Not exciting to see, but interesting to see how another culture honored their dead. We have seen the pyramids in Egypt, the tombs of Petra in Jordan, stone tombs in Ireland, and of course, many, many, cemeteries in many countries. These mounds are similar to the burial mounds around Stonehenge in England.

So after the visit to the mounds, it was time to head further west to South Dakota for our next adventure.

Map progress – Chain O Lakes State Park, IL to Pikes Peak State Park, IA via Tin Tin.

June 29 – July 2, 2020

Today we took the short trip from Warren Dunes State Park, MI to Chicago, IL, the windy city. Back south through Indiana and west over to Illinois.

Neither Andrea or I have ever been to Chicago before, so we were really looking forward to this leg of the trip. Everyone I know who has been here has raved that Chicago really is a wonderful place to visit.

We stayed in the Chain O Lakes State Park about 1 1/2 hours outside of Chicago. This was the only RV park we could find to stay in, so we felt we could deal with the long drive into the city and back each day. We rented a small pickup truck from Enterprise so we wouldn’t have to deal with trying to park Tin Tin (our RV) every day in a major city congested with weekday traffic. That worked out pretty well.

We checked into the park, picked up the rental truck, and headed into Chicago late afternoon that day. We saw a couple of interesting sights heading out of Chain O Lakes park.

We saw this parked car on the side of the road in the park and couldn’t figure out why it was stopped. Look at the road between the 2 guys.

After an hour of so, we start to see the skyline of Chicago through the rain clouds.

We wanted to see the Navy Pier. This is an old navy training facility that has been converted into a hotel/convention center/restaurant/tourist area. We wandered around, had drinks in the Riva Restaurant and then dinner at Giordano’s pizza restaurant. The pizza was good, but Andrea got the deep dish version which is really full of cheese. Let’s just say the cheese upset her tummy for most of the evening once we got back to Tin Tin. My thin crust pizza was excellent.

The next day we headed back into the downtown Chicago area again. We wanted to see the Cloud Gate Sculpture (also known as the Bean) in Millennium Park then take in some other sights.

Next on our list was to take a boat cruise on the Chicago River to see the different building architectural styles in the downtown area.

After the fun cruise, we decided to go The Loop section of town. This area is known for it’s bars, restaurants, shops and is generally a great place to wander around in.

Unfortunately for us, most of these great locations are still shut down from the Covid-19 issues. While the area looked nice, there was not much to actually do, so we moved on to Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park is kind of a Greenwich Village type area north of downtown. We wandered a bit, had some drinks, cookies and ice cream and headed back to the RV park.

Back closer to the RV park we got hungry and stopped into the Bridgeport Inn Bar & Grill. They had great hot dogs and bratwurst sandwiches. This was a great way to end another exciting day in Chicago.

Our last day in Chicago was basically doing catch up work in the RV. We had laundry to do, some minor repairs to the RV and scheduling the next few legs of our trip.

One interesting thing in our park though is all of the fireflies (or lighting bugs, depending on where you are from). As the park is a conservation area, it is full of wildlife. The mosquitos are a pain, but the fireflies are really cool.

Map progress – Warren Dunes State Park, MI to Chain o Lakes State Park, IL via Tin Tin.

June 28, 2020

After leaving Columbus, OH we headed north west back into Michigan to check out the Warren Dunes State Park. A friend of mine that I used to work with, Bob, who grew up in Michigan, told us we had to see this area as the dunes were amazing. As it is sort of on the way to Chicago, IL, our next destination. We decided to spend the night in the park and check it out.

We headed out pretty much west and soon crossed the Indiana State Border.

Andrea and I have a couple of good friends that live in Tampa, Paul and Josh. Paul is from Fort Wayne, IN, so when we saw some signs off the highway saying that Fort Wayne was pretty close, we took a right and headed into town to check it out for a bit.

Now, Fort Wayne, is a nice little mid American town. Nice parks, buildings, pretty clean and all of that stuff. However, there is not a single sign we could find that says “Welcome to Fort Wayne”. Every other town in the world wants you to know that you have arrived in their little section of the universe, except, it seems for Fort Wayne. I guess they think they don’t need the publicity.

So, we got a few ancillary shots of Fort Wayne to prove we were there.

So, after an exciting 20 minutes or so of exploring Fort Wayne, IN we get back on the road north. We saw a couple of interesting sights along the way.

We crossed the border into Michigan, and finally saw a Welcome to Michigan sign, unlike when we crossed into the state a few days ago. I guess no one has gotten around to stealing this sign yet.

We made it to Warren Dunes State Park in the afternoon, checked in and went to explore the beach and the dunes. Bob was right, the dunes are really one of a kind. I don’t know if if is because they are on the banks of a fresh water lake, or the fact that they freeze up every winter, but they are very unique and very interesting. The park itself is obviously very popular with the local folks and their families.

As it is a Michigan State Park, it is very well maintained, clean, and has very good facilities. There was only electric hookup for our RV, no water or sewer, but that was no issue as we had plenty of fresh water on board and plenty of room in our black and grey holding tanks.

The beach area is very nice, full of people, and the water was not nearly as cold as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t go swimming. After all we are wimpy Floridians, but when I bravely stuck my hand into a wave, it did not come out frozen and with frostbite.

I took a brief walk up the dunes, closest to us. Notice I said I, not we. Someone stayed behind in the RV playing their computer game.

The sand is very loose and very hard to walk on. Those dunes don’t look very high, but I was definitely huffing and puffing as I worked my way up into the first couple of hills. These dunes are very unique. Not like ocean sand dunes, not like the White Sands dunes in New Mexico. They have a very distinct coarse quality to them that must come from the fresh water sand out of the lake.

This has been a nice stop along the way. On to Chicago!!

Map progress – Columbus, OH to Warren Dunes State Park, MI via Tin Tin.

June 26 -27, 2020

The first thing we did after leaving Mackinaw City, MI was take the bridge north on I-75 to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While I really wanted to drive the bridge, the 12th longest suspension bridge in the world, my red headed navigator was not too keen on the idea. Especially when we had to pay $10 to go over and then $10 again when we turned around to come back.

So, technically we went to the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. Realistically it was a 10 minute drive up I-75 over the bridge to the next turn around to head back south on I-75 to Ohio. Still, a pretty cool drive over the junction of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron that we had done on the water on the Star Ferry to Mackinac Island the day before.

We are here in Columbus, OH to visit with our friends Mark and Ileana. Mark and I have been going to the Florida Keys to fish, boat, scuba dive, and hunt lobsters with our friend Wray for the past 14 years or so. Since Andrea and I are in the area, we thought we would stop in for a day and hang out with them.

All of the area RV parks in the area were full, so we went upscale and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express for a couple of nights. It’s more roomy than Tin Tin, but now we have to haul stuff up and back to the room. Oh well, the trials and tribulations of traveling.

We met up with Mark and Ileana at their lovely home and went out to the local section of town of the Columbus suburb they live in, Powell, to a great restaurant called Local Roots. They feature locally grown products, vegetables, and meats when ever possible. Oh yeah, they serve beer and liquor also. Very important.

This particular weekend the Town of Powell was having a “DORA” celebration. DORA stands for Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area. It is a way to help with the social distancing response to Covid-19 and it gets people out walking around the very nice little downtown area.

Of course we had to support the local community, so after dinner, we stopped into Prohibitions Bar to do some quality control tastings of their offerings.

We wandered about for a while and took in the great weather, and maybe an ice cream along the way.

After our wandering and a little carousing we returned to Mark and Ileana’s house to wind down a bit. Turns out that Mark has a Daisy BB gun that he uses to chase away the chipmunks from his flower beds in his back yard.

Now, I was a BB gun Top Gun in my younger days, so of course we had to shoot it out. Now, the way I heard the contest was the losing guy had to buy his wife something pretty. Turns out I had it backwards. The winning guy has to buy his wife something pretty. Now seeing how I won the contest, thinking that Mark had to cough up the prize, I should have let him win made him buy Ileana a gift. SSSSSHHHH, don’t tell Andrea that I won.

After a great evening and highly competitive shooting contest it was time to pack it in. All in all a very fun time hanging out with friends.

Map progress – Mackinaw City, MI to Columbus, OH via Tin Tin.

June 24 – 25, 2020

We started out from Ann Arbor, MI bright and early (at least for us) heading north to Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island. We arrived in the afternoon and stayed on the southern side of the bridge that spans both Lake Huron and Lake Michigan into the Upper Peninsula. We got to our RV park, a very nice park called Mackinaw Mill Creek Camping. It is quite a large park situated directly on the shore of Lake Huron. We checked in, found our site, and immediately went out to explore the area.

The first thing we found was the Mackinaw City Center and the docks for the ferries that head out across Lake Huron to Mackinac Island.

While wandering around the shops we managed to find tasting rooms for both wine and whiskey. Needless to say, we bought a few bottles of each.

Next it was off to dinner then to explore Michilimackinac Park which contains a very small lighthouse and historical fort that was used during the American Revolution.

From the shores of the park, you can see Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, the connecting bridge, Mackinac Island and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

From there it was back to the park to end our first day here and see a gorgeous sunset from the shore of Lake Huron.

The next day we caught a shuttle from the RV park that took us directly to the Star Line Ferry dock. We had bought a couple of tickets for the ferry the night before at the RV park office, so we jumped on the free shuttle and before we knew it we were boarding the Star Ferry. The ferries are hydro-jet boats that throw up really impressive rooster tails as they speed through the water. It is basically the same engine design as a jet ski, just a whole lot bigger and more powerful.

It’s about a 30 minute ride from the dock to Machinac Island. We even took a little detour underneath the Mackinac Bridge. The bridge divides Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. It is also the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere and the 12th longest suspension bridge in the world.

Once we landed on beautiful Mackinac Island, we wandered around the main city center then took a very nice carriage ride around a good portion of the rest of the island. The island is only 3.7 square miles, so it can be covered very easily. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the island, so people either walk, ride bikes, or take horse drawn carriages or taxis. We walked around a bit then took the carriage ride. There are some fairly serious hills on the island that the horses can handle a lot better than we can.

We started off on foot and explored the Main Street area and worked our way over to the Grand Hotel. The Grand Hotel is a world famous resort property that was built in 1887 by the Mackinac Island Hotel company. It has the largest porch in the country and is known as the site where Thomas Edison used to give free demonstrations of his new contraption, the phonograph.

After lunch it was time for our carriage ride with Christian and his horses Merle and Lady. We had about an hour and a half ride through the city and into the park and historical areas.

After the carriage ride, it was back to the Star Ferry and back to the RV. All in all, a very fun and pleasant day.

Map progress – Sandusky, MI to Mackinaw City, MI via Tin Tin.

June 23, 2020

We started out the morning with some very impressive thunderstorms and heavy rain, so delayed our departure to Ann Arbor, MI from Sandusky, OH an hour or so. Not a big deal as we only had to drive a little over 2 hours today to reach our destination.

Ann Arbor is the home of the University of Michigan, an alma mater of our son-in-law Vijay. We also have numerous friends that are either associated with the State of Michigan or the Blue ( or Go Blue, as Un, of Mi folks like to say), so we had an interest in checking out this neat little college town.

Crossing the state line from Ohio to Michigan we were disappointed not to see a Welcome to Michigan sign. Every other state has some kind of statement, even a silly one like Ohio (“Ohio – find it here”, what the heck is that supposed to mean?). So, we had to make due with a Michigan Welcome Center sign about 9 miles in from the Ohio border.

We continued through the Michigan farmlands until we finally arrived at our RV park.

This private park was much better than our previous experience in Sandusky, OH and featured some very nice lakes for swimming, fishing, boating, etc.

We got checked in and immediately headed out to Ann Arbor. After a 20 minute drive, we hit the big time. Go Blue!

We hit the U of M souvenir store and bought a few items for the M alum and his son.

Afterwards, well, we got thirsty and had to stop for liquid refreshment as we explored downtown Ann Arbor.

We explored the town a bit and saw some interesting murals and historical items. Watch the video and take the quiz if you dare. Answer is after the video clip.

The wall mural is a nice bit of Ann Arbor history. It was done in 1984 by Richard Wolk on what was then the David’s Bookstore building. Thus, it was named the Bookstore Mural. The faces, in order, are Woody Allen, Edgar Allan Poe, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, and Anais Nin. Have your own Michigan alum take the quiz and see how he/she does (we won’t revel Vijay’s score as we really like him and don’t want to embarrass him in front of the world and our avid readers).

After drinks and exploration, we headed back to the RV park. Along the way we noticed a road sign saying that the Ypsilanti Historic Downtown area was just off the highway. It was still early, so what the heck. Off we went.

Well, historic Ypsilanti downtown is a bust. However, there is the Depot Town area adjacent to downtown that is really nice. It is the old train depot and features some historical railroad cars and neat restaurants and bars. Oh yeah, we might have had another drink or two.

Map progress – Sandusky, OH to Ann Arbor, MI via Tin Tin.

June 22, 2020

From Cleveland, we continued around Lake Erie to the lakeside town of Sandusky, OH. We wanted to explore the lake some more and take advantage of the great summer weather we were experiencing.

We drove a couple of hours and made it to Camp Sanducky, one of the less interesting RV parks we have stayed in. It is a private park, not very well maintained. We have gotten spoiled staying in the State Parks and haven’t been in a run down one for awhile. Oh well, it’s only one night.

While the park is not the greatest, we enjoyed the waterfront section of Sandusky and then the Marblehead Lighthouse in the Marblehead State Park.

First thing we saw in Sandusky proper was a great wall mural downtown.

There is quite a bit of construction and renovations going on in this area. That white thing hanging down on top of the mural is from the demolished roof of the building that the mural is painted on. It is an old theater building that I hope they are going to save and not just tear down. Many buildings are being torn down and others have renovations going on inside. I don’t know where the money is coming from, but it looks like thinks are looking up for Sandusky.

We headed down to the pier to take another look at Lake Erie.

After our peaceful walk about we found a candy/ice cream/comic book/nick nack store. We just had to test the ice cream for quality control.

Next it was on to a more adult location; Daly’s Pub. We did not have ice cream there.

While we were in the Pub, we noticed a list of things to do in the area. Andrea and I both like to explore lighthouses. We saw there was an old one not too far away in Marblehead State Park. On the way out of the Pub we saw some words of wisdom. Probably from a leprechaun.

We loaded up in Tin Tin and made our way about 30 miles around the Lake Erie shoreline to get to Marblehead State Park and the lighthouse.

On the way back to the Sandusky Campground, we saw a bar named Margaritaville. Now, most everyone knows that Jimmy Buffet has the Margaritaville name pretty much sewed up through his song, the restaurants, and a myriad of other business enterprises he has. So, we were very curious as to how this bar could have this name. So, of course we had to stop in. Drinking may have ensued.

So, the story the waitress told us was that this restaurant was around before Jimmy Buffet started his restaurant chain. They never copyrighted the name Margaritaville, so they couldn’t stop him from using it. So, their official name is the Original Margaritaville. Jimmy calls his Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. So, they just learned how to get along. Maybe the rest of the world can do that to.

By the way, the food at the Original Margaritaville is not nearly as good as at Jimmy’s. Too much fried food gave us gas and tummy aches later that night. So, beware!

Map progress – Cleveland, OH to Sandusky, OH via Tin Tin.

June 19 – 20, 2020

After spending some great family time in Baltimore with our daughter’s family, we headed west to Pittsburg, PA. We planned to see a few sights there, but got delayed and just spent one night in an RV camp outside of the city.

All in all we had a very peaceful day. At night we saw a lot of fireflies. Really cool. I haven’t seen them since I was a kid in New Jersey.

The next day it is back on the road to Cleveland.

Our primary goal in going to Cleveland was to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We decided to go on a Sunday, as the Hall is located downtown, close to the Lake Erie riverfront. As we used Tin Tin (our RV) to get down there, we wanted to be sure we could park it without having the busy weekend traffic to deal with. That worked out well and we found a good parking spot just a block away from the Hall.

The Hall of Fame is really an amazing and fun place to visit. The exhibits detail specific areas of Rock History, such as various influential cities, times in history that music affected, influences from other forms of music, and of course all the great music acts from the past 70 years.

The Hall of Fame is located right on the banks of Lake Erie. After spending the afternoon inside, we wandered out to look at this amazing lake. It is hard to describe how big it is. It looks like the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.

At the end of the day it was off to the West Branch State Park to set up Tin Tin and bed down for the night. It was another quiet, comfortable spot in the woods and surrounded by lakes.

Map progress – Baltimore, MD to Pittsburg, PA and then on to Cleveland, OH in Tin Tin.