Paola, Daniela and Kids
The blog's been quiet for the past few days because we have been resting in Madison, WI with friends, Bart, Daniela and their two beautiful children, Nicole and Max.
We arrived in Madison after an overnight stay at the Albert Lea Wal-Mart in Minnesota in the early afternoon on Saturday and hung out with our friends for the rest of the day. (Daniela was Carol's Italian tutor when they lived in Burlington. They've been in Madison for a couple of years. They both went to grad school at UW so are familiar with the area.)
We enjoyed a wonderful lasagna for dinner followed by a Mother's day brunch of tasty waffles. Bart then left for Cincinnati in the afternoon with Nicole to visit his sister who has been ill. We spent time with Dany, then had a great fish dinner at Joey's Fish House.
We are parked on the street and sleep in the RV rather than bother the house with the dogs.
On Monday we toured downtown Madison including a visit to the Terrace building on the waterfront (there are two lakes within the city limits of Madison) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's a very beautiful building and well-maintained, too, used for many public and private functions and by the University. We then toured the state capitol, a very stately domed building with exterior white granite from Bethel, Vermont!! The capitol was rebuilt after a fire in the early 1900s and they spared no expense. Very impressive interior faced and floored with marbles from throughout the world.
Our tour was followed by a great lunch at a 'Continental' restaurant owned by a Sicilian and serving wonderful Italian food. Best Italian food we've had at a restaurant thus far on the trip.
On Monday I had the RV serviced at a local Dodge dealer and Carol and I both got much needed haircuts. Yesterday we visited an RV dealer and looked in detail at a Winnebago View, the hottest selling RV in today's market. It's only 24' but very spacious inside and comes standard with a Diesel engine providing 18-20 mpg. It's a very nicely designed vehicle. We've made no decision to trade in our trusty Xplorer, which has served us well on this journey.
Yesterday afternoon we visited friends of Dany's who pastor a Methodist church in Lomira, about 75 miles east of Madison, near Fond du Lac. Paola is Italian and her husband, John, and she pastored churches in Sicily before coming to the U.S. Their children are bilingual and we had a nice family dinner and visit with them.
Today, we readied the RV and traveled to Waukegan, IL to visit Brenda, a childhood friend from Milford, MA. We had a nice meal and a very warm visit. She suggested Illinois Beach State Park on Lake Michigan and we are now there, one of the few hardy campers. There are scores of campsites here with electricity, just back from the lake shore.
The weather has been miserable since we ran into the stationery storm that is sitting astride the country's midsection. It is clear now, but we have had showers and thunderstorms all day and showers since we entered central Minnesota.
We are settled in for the night and will visit two other families in the Chicago area before heading home. We will start for home next Monday, arriving a bit earlier than expected, spending a week at home before heading to Wrentham/Foxboro, MA.
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