U. P. Trip - Fall 2010 - Day #16

Like mother, like daughter!  The day had been planned as a gentle start to seriously moving south with a lakeshore run down beside Lake Michigan, a visit to Green Bay to at least see the outside of Lambeau Field, the home of the Green Bay Packers NFL Football Team, and perhaps a little more shopping in the various outlets to be found in Oshkosh.

However, the shoreline cruise took less time than expected, even with stops for gas and a walk in a State Park by the lake and in playing with Portia Marissa realized that we had allowed too much time for the day, since we would reach our two destinations much earlier than anticipated.  Portia also suggested that, to avoid the anti-climax that always comes with leaving the U.P. a run all the way home was quite credible, so having confirmed we could cancel our last hotel reservation without penalty we elected to make a run for it.

The problem with GPS device inexperience lies in the words "traffic" and "delays"!  Had we been traveling between midnight and early morning, the time estimate would probably have been pretty close to correct.  As it turned out, construction around Milwaukee delayed us a fair bit, but far worse was taking over ninety minutes to achieve a mere five miles of "freeway" distance around Chicago.  Nevertheless, by alternating drivers and making minimal & very brief stops, we managed to pull in to Marissa's driveway a little before midnight (Central time), tired but happy to be done with traveling for a while.  We will still look on the weekend as vacation time, but without the pressure to achieve a great deal in a big hurry.

While we have reported on our own experiences and behavior and described at times Zoe's enjoyment of unfettered freedom, we should also comment on Zoe's great general behavior.  We had zero "accidents" the whole trip, and she was spectacularly well behaved and uncomplaining even during the very long runs, especially this last one, which between pulling out of the hotel in Iron Mountain and arriving at Marissa's totaled 728.4 miles.  Although the trip odometer will continue to run in and around Mount Vernon and then back to Columbus, this effective end to the major travels has been reached at 3178.3 miles.

Just a couple of pictures of Lambeau Field were added to the set on this last day, so the complete Flickr set of the small proportion of our pictures actually put there may be found here.