Advertisement
We pulled into the Wal-Mart in Plymouth, Indiana at 2am. We all fell asleep quickly, which is, I suppose, the beauty of being exhausted. I awoke what seemed very briefly after to Jeff telling me it was time to get up. As it turned out, it wasn't. It was 2:35. He was just confused.
We spent much of the day continuing to head east, but stopped for 2 Cache Across America caches on the way. We just learned about this while planning this trip. Once you find all 50, you can find the final in DC. I doubt we'll ever complete it, but it's a cool idea. Our first find was at the Kosciusko County Visitor Center in Indiana. The second was along the Maumee River southwest of Toledo, Ohio.
Our big destination for the day was South Bass Island in Lake Erie. We took Jet Express across and back. Upon boarding, Liam insisted we sit on top, which lasted for about three minutes after departure. The boys both had fun being on the ferry, though, especially watching the captain.
The island itself is an interesting place. It's very much touristy, resort feeling, similar to Mackinac, although it's
been awhile since we've been to really compare. We rented a golf cart which was pretty entertaining to ride. The boys were in booster seats and seatbelted, but there weren't any for us so I always felt in danger of falling off, particularly when Jeff turned without warning.
We stopped first at Perry's Victory & International Peace Memorial, the main purpose for our trip. The boys were interested in the model ships and of course the cannon. The memorial itself is pretty impressive (3rd tallest memorial structure in the world, the ferry captain said), but it's unfortunately being maintained and so we couldn't go up for the view. Oh, well.
Our second stop was Crystal Cave. To complete an earthcache, we had to go down there, which I thought was pretty stupid, but when I told Jeff it was the world's largest geode and we could go in it, he thought it wasn't that bad of an idea. The required winery tour first was pretty lame, but the crystal structure was pretty cool. We really should have taken more pictures. That's going to be the other difference. The boys are always going in different directions and there will
be so many places for them to go that we're going to have to be focused one-on-one rather than one taking pictures. I'm over a year behind on scrapbooking anyway, so it doesn't really matter that much.
After the geode, we went across to Perry's Cave, for another earthcache. We won't be doing any other caves this vacation, so we figured we'd go ahead. It is pretty small, but Tyler the tour guide was quite entertaining. He pointed to a stalagmite cluster that is supposed to look like a lion. He pointed out the features and asked whether people saw it. When they said yes, he mentioned that it looked more like a basset hound to him and then pointed to Homer Simpson in repose. There is also a lake, which was very clear but greenish-tinged. The water filters from Lake Erie through limestone, so is at lake level, but it used to be a wishing well, thus the green.
We had promised the boys ice cream on the island, so we couldn't pass by the South Bend Chocolate Company. Their ice cream was quite good, as were some of the many chocolates they had. After that, we
tooled around for an hour or so, rode the ferry back and headed east again toward another Wal-Mart.
Liam's "When I have kids . . . " Statement of the Day: When I have kids, we're going to come here on vacation.
Number of Times Cole Asked about Going Home: 4 (started less than 15 minutes after starting out for the day)
Projects Completed: 0 (but am working on my vest, the second biggest piece I've done thus far)
GF: 6 (IN-1, OH-5)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.217s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 67; dbt: 0.0757s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb