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Day 2: From Deerfield IL to Minneapolis MN

2009.07.01

While we were wrapping up our belongings to be left behind at the storage here in Deerfield, Farhan made sure he dipped into the hotel's pool.

Since we arrived late yesterday at 8pm, he could not enjoy the pool yesterday.

Since an adult was required to accompany him, Sarah was tasked for it :P

This was what he'd been waiting for the entire winter.

Well, he went to Fuller pool in Ann Arbor a couple of times with his friends.

Sarah did not mind waiting as long as she had the camera with her :P

While waiting for us rearrange our cargo...

... someone tried to fill up her time, who else?... my creative daughter for sure ;)

We were totally thankful to the GM of Residence Inn Marriott for offering us this free night stay. We could at least rest and sleep on a comfy bed before we rough it in a tent from today onwards.

It was about noon when we left the hotel to this storage which was few minutes away from the hotel. We will have to come here again to pick up our stuff by end of the month when we return from our roadtrip.

Even after we left behind some of our belongings here, the trunk and cargo are now full and there's only a small space for Kandaq's duffle bag. Hee.. What more important is there's no bag under our legs. Heh! We were quite rushed to move out from our Northwood and we did not have ample time to properly pack for our summer vacation.

We passed by Six Flags Great America soon after we left Deerfield. Btw, when we left the storage it was already 12.30pm and we were quite late to reach our next destination i.e. Minneapolis! Ohh... I haven't shared our roadtrip plan yet! We were too occupied with packing our house to move to storage till we did not spend too much time on planning for our summer travel. I strongly believe in proper planning for perfect execution. I hope we can still plan along the way. Nevertheless, despite busy with packing, I managed to cook 15 packs of frozen food. I hope to fill in the gaps with sardine, maggi, McD, BK and.. err.. salmon in Seattle perhaps ;)

Now, Iet's talk about our plan for this year summer roadtrip. We initially thought Florida would be good for this summer. But then, it would be closer to make a trip down south from our future home in NJ. Why don't we save the best for last for the kids as I've been to Florida for four times already.

For this year, we decided to explore North west of the US since we have not been to Seattle and Portland yet. Hence, on the way to our ultimate destinations in Washington and Oregon, we plan to travel thru the states which we did not cover last summer which are North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. Pretty boring states huh? So the stops for this year won't be as interesting as last year since we have visited all those famous places already.

I believe the theme for this time round is exploring the pacific north west. Nevertheless, we will make a stop at Yellowstone National Park again to camp there for few days. This is to accommodate Kandaq's request and kids are also excited to camp there again. Moreover, it's pretty much along the route that we'll be traveling. If you compare this map and last year's map, it has a stark difference in terms of number of attractions, well.. we wish to fill in the gaps to ensure we cover them all. Hah!

We took Interstate-94 West heading towards Milwaukee.

Wisconsin welcomed us at 1pm.

Continuing our journey via Madison.

We spotted many farm houses along this route.

While passing by Wisconsin Dells, we could see Kalahari Resort and Great Wolf Lodge from the highway.

Hey 321...AYU! Hahah!

Oh dear... what happened to that farm house?!

It was all the way on I-94 West!

Crossing the Mississippi river prior to...

... entering Minnesota.

It was already 8pm when we arrived KOA in Minneapolis.

Luckily the person in charge was still there even though the office was already closed.

D surprised us by renting a cabin for tonight!

Since we were still exhausted from packing and cleaning the house, we did not have much energy to pitch our tent. Moreover, it was getting dark when we arrived.

Farhan would never miss the opportunity when it comes to swimming. This KOA offers an indoor pool.

After we had our dinner, chicken curry, telur dadar and sambal ikan bilis, we were all ready to settle for a long tiring day. We just spent a night here since we visited Minneapolis last summer. Yup... we went to Mall of America. We hoped to be able to sleep well in this cabin.