Traveling from Austin, TX to Wausau, WI!! From an attempted room break-in to visiting with family and old friends and getting our kicks on Route 66, it was quite a TRIP! Our trip, of course, included pizza, beer and ice cream. We added a couple extra foods for good measure.
Ever been awakened at 1:45 am to someone attempting to open your hotel room? Well, it was a first for us. What a jolt of adrenaline - it happened at a Hampton Inn near the Shreveport Airport. After a few calls to the front desk, the hotel finally admitted assigning our room to another guest and giving them room keys - at 1:45 am, as in the middle of the night?!?. The first two stories were quite unbelievable. Luckily, we had the extra latch hooked. Donna slammed the door shut after the second attempt to get in and politely asked them to stop. At this point, we were wide awake and not sure it wouldn't happen again. We got on the road at 2:30 am - what an early start to the day! We saw the sun rise while driving.
We saw rice fields driving through Arkansas - the state ranks first in the country for annual production with 1.4 million acres of planted rice fields.
Southern Illinois has beauty with all of its farms.
We got our kicks on Route 66. We stopped to see Donna's sisters - Pam (Dan) and Wanda (Don). We sure had fun visiting with them. It had been awhile since we last saw them. By the way, Donna is one of 12 kids (6 boys and 6 girls - she falls in the middle as number 7).
Note the Towanda reference in the photo. What movie uses that word as a battle cry? (Fried Green Tomatoes)
Sister Pam and Donna in an old munitions storage bunker in the Midewin National Tall Grass Prairie.
My sister Pam and her husband Dan along with the Gemini Giant along Route 66.
The Polka Dot restaurant with kitschy statues along Route 66.
My sister Wanda and her partner Don.
Reminisced at Northern Illinois Univ. in Dekalb where Donna went for her first two years of college. Her dorm had been torn down to make room for wider streets but here is a picture of its sister dorm - rather ugly but had good memories.
The football stadium where she missed most of the games due to working in the dorm cafeteria.
She can't believe they replaced Rick's - her favorite pizza and Italian beef restaurant with a Dominos.
We stopped at Lake Geneva, WI for a couple days and met up with Donna's high school and college friend - Sue and her husband Mike. It was fun reminiscing with her. Lake Geneva was and is a popular resort town for wealthy Chicago residents like Wrigley, Maytag and Schwinn.
We spent a week in Madison, WI. What a pretty city with an equally pretty university! The city has several lakes around it. It's also the capital of Wisconsin.
There were cool murals on buildings.
Statues of the university mascot, Bucky the Badger are all over the city.
Views from our campus walk.
The Allen Centennial Garden on campus.
The university is a big agricultural school - has animals right on campus. It even has its own dairy and meat processing which it sells in its own stores.
Our food and drink along the 1400+ mile trip. Can life get any better? We each just ordered two scoops of ice cream - each scoop ordered is actually two big scoops for a total of four each! Wow!
Gino's East Pizza which is Chicago style deep dish pizza with the sauce on top.
Pasties (we described what they are in our July 2021 post while visiting the UP in Michigan).
The popular Wisconsin brat!
We're in Wausau, WI and having great fun. Stayed tuned for our next adventures.
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