Crossing State Lines

July 1-3, 2016

I’m writing this on the morning of the Fourth at a Clarion in Baraboo, Wis.

We left New Jersey around 10:30 July 1 and made it to Hubbard, Ohio, not far from Youngstown, by dinnertime. July 2 we crossed Ohio and Indiana to Portage. Both days were largely spent driving. Stops were mostly at rest areas or gas stations.

Portage isn’t much fun. We wound up eating dinner at the Denny’s next to the motel. But we were only 20 minutes from Indiana Dunes State Park.

We went to the visitors’ center, which is outside the park itself. Next to the building, there is a garden designed to filter water on its way to Lake Michigan. 

The building is open 24 hours a day. There is a sign in the window that says “Safe Area.”

Turns out, there are at least two rooms in the structure that are labeled as tornado shelters. 

There is also a kiddie room with samples of dead animals.

One of the highlights had nothing to do with natural habitat or conservation. The Lakeshore Dunes, like the dunes at Kitty Hawk, provide elevation in the face of strong winds.

Octave Chanute, an engineer from Chicago, used the dunes as a laboratory to study glider flight. There is a replica of one of his gliders hanging from the ceiling of the center. He laid a lot of groundwork that he shared with the Wright brothers.

You can see how it is the forerunner of the Wright Flyer. Except that the Wrights’ plane had a three-part stabilizer, not four.

We went to the park, but forgot, though, that it was July 3. We sat in a line of traffic for almost 45 minutes to get in. The parking lot was jammed with tailgaters, so we had to be careful not to run over their children as we looked for a parking spot.

We saw Devil’s Slide, a dune maybe 70 feet high and covered in trees. There is a wide sand trail leading to the top.

Then we went to the Cowles Bog Trail. I’m very fond of bogs. This one is sheltered from Lake Michigan by a large hill. This may be a dune, too, but I’m not sure.

We walked for a half hour or so, listened to the frogs croak, and decided it was time to head for Baraboo.

We got the “low fuel” light somewhere before Chicago. When we paid the toll to continue on I-90, I asked about gasing the car. The toll-taker said there is a gas station three miles on. 

The sign was so small that I was on it and gone before I could read it. I wound up getting off the highway a couple of exits later. There was no west-bound re-entry.

Meanwhile, the computer lady in the Garmin GPS (who has an Australian accent, by the way) every block or two announced, “Recalculating.”  We stopped for gasoline and continued in the direction she had told us. Again “recalculating.”

She told me to take rights that didn’t seem to exist. Then she put us on a highway that took us back to I-90.

No problems after that. We wound up in Baraboo around 6 Central Time.

The lady at the desk told us about a supper club called Ishnala. I wondered if she was mispronouncing “inshallah,” Arabic for “God willing.” It’s something Moslems are supposed to say every time they talk about their plans. 

OK, I’m thinking, hummus, felafel. It could be fun.

No, though. It is Inshala, which, according to a sign in the bar, means “by itself alone” in Winnebago. 

Welcome to Wisconsin Dells, the equivalent of Disney World in the Upper Midwest. There were more dead animals in the restaurant, along with a dummy Indian identified as Chief Inshala. There were fake teepees outside and totem poles at the entrance to the road leading to the parking lot. 

The place was packed. The campgrounds were loaded with trailers and tents. There was an hour and a half wait for a table. We decided to stay.

We walked around the grounds and entered a trail in the neighboring nature refuge. I didn’t want to go too far because I didn’t know the range of the device they gave us. It is one of those radio boxes that light up, buzz, and vibrate when you’re table’s ready.

We went back to the bar. The bartender didn’t know what Campari was, so I had a dry vermouth and club soda. This is a very light highball. I actually used it one night in Atlanta years ago to sober up after taking too much craft beer at dinner.

Dinner was surprisingly good. I had snails to start and Joanna had an excellent French onion soup. We sampled each other’s appetizer.

We shared a dish called chicken Oscar, which was a lighly breaded boneless chicken breast covered with lump crab and a sauce of some kind.

Then it was time to call it a day.

I don’t know when I will send this because the wifi has crashed here. Or maybe it has been hacked. I’m not sure. All I know is that the system won’t let me in, and when I called the desk, the hotel had already sent a message to the company’s IT department.

Be well, all.

Harry

July 5

Wisconsin?

Perhaps a name for your next missive: Travel Tips for Masochists.

(Try to) have a good time.

Larry