Papaya Mom

Jackson, MN to Chersterton, IN

Oh dear. It is 9:30 p.m. and we just made it into our hotel room.

The day began so well with an alarm at five a.m. Adventure Dad got up and showered, loaded the car and got gas while I awoke and dressed then managed to change the outfit and diaper of Papaya without waking her. We were on a roll, a good one, we hit the road in sub-freezing temperatures with Papaya asleep before we even hit I90 which was visible from our hotel. This idea was from a friend who home birthed her third child last saturday, I should have known she has a higher tolerance for pain than I.

We made it 150 miles and two hours before breakfast at the Canadian Honker. Little did I know when I selected this restaurant that it was in the middle of the multi-block area that houses the Mayo Clinic. As Adventure Dad said “this is the town of sick people!” I like to think of it as a town of Doctors where the sick people come, but that is a whole other thing. Nonetheless, breakfast was alright with the highlight being the coffee we both needed (even I drank some, unusual) and cinnamon roll that fed all three of us before our meals arrived. On the way out of town our sweet girl fell asleep again, and while Adventure Dad drove, I did too. The only issue was by this time we had fog, as the sun rose it had begun and did not break until noon. Minnesota was all fog, the kind where you go below the speed limit because you can only see a few hundred yards ahead of you even though the Big Rigs are passing you on the left at twice your speed and disappearing into the white beyond.

Next stop was Madison, Wisconsin which I had visited once at 16 years old with a friend. This time our goal was the Madison Children’s Museum which was right across the street from the capital building and along the pedestrian-only State Street. What fun! We walked and window shopped and made it to the BEST Children’s Museum thus far. Okay, we’ve only been to two, but this one rocked. I got all sorts of ideas for our finished basement in DC and a lot (80 in 90 minutes) of pictures of the princess. She played in a house, on stairs, with a kaleidoscope, with brushes, teeth, nets, a garden, a kitchen, cows, dinosaurs and a boat. By the time we moved on to Angelic Brewing Company for lunch she was very tired. A quick meal (and pint glass for the collection) and on towards Chicago we went. This was at 4 p.m. and we had already made our minimum 350 miles that day. Why did we go on?

So we hit the Chicago area around 6 p.m. What happens then? Rush hour, oh, and rain. Yep, we spent two hours passing through Chicago wanting to get past the traffic so that when we stopped for the night we did not need to worry about morning traffic. We got far enough and even found a hotel, but when we arrived it was next to the train tracks on the bad side of town. We stopped long enough to nurse Papaya so that I would not burst, and got back in the car. Papaya was amazingly good, she had yet to protest the car-seat on this long long day.

So that is how we ended up here, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Chesterton, Indiana. The Bob Evans next door was about to close when we got here, so we rushed over to eat dinner and then got into our hotel room. Papaya is in the bath with Dad and I’m looking back on our longest day yet. Minnesota then Wisconsin then Illinois and now Indiana. Four states, one long day.

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