The saga (err, journey) continues

The part of the story takes us from July 12-15...

Although our night in the Chicago suburbs was lovely, it was not without its challenges. First, we had to find something to eat that could be delivered—we ended up with an Italian style pizza. Not deep dish Chicago style, but good! The dogs were surprisingly good in the 3rd floor hotel room and seemed exhausted. However, Harry the dog still wasn’t quite accustomed to the new routine. As he was nervous, he gulped water at an alarming rate and woke the professor up at 11 and 1 am to go outside.

At 5: 30 am, I took them on the first morning walk. We knew we’d be ruled by our dogs on this journey, but that allowed us to see our travels from a very different angle than usual! Luckily the hotel near Chicago was right by an interesting truck parking lot/business with a lot of sidewalk to explore and a few friendly truckers. I couldn’t believe how cool it was in the morning compared to Kentucky! In Kentucky, I took a morning walk in July and felt happy if it wasn’t already over 75F. In Chicago, it was in the 60’s and breezy.

On we went to Minneapolis….we were slightly better prepared for how the day would go. I drove first and we headed towards Madison, WI for lunch. The professor had been there at least twice, and suggested we head towards the Capitol building to see the weekend farmers’ market. This seemed great! I drove…and drove…

Nearby, we saw a lot of cars. Tents, and crowds…this must be one heck of a farmers’ market, we figured. Maybe we’ll be able to buy lunch there. Well, it turned out that Madison had its once a year Art on the Square event on July 11th and 12th. We didn’t figure this out until we’d leashed up the dogs, walked up the hill and discovered wall o’ people…and a lot of breakable objets d’art.

Have we mentioned how good our dogs were!? We maneuvered out of the crowds as quickly as we could, grabbed street food for lunch, and walked right back down the hill. Feeling oddly unfulfilled, we stopped at Ella’s Deli on the way out of town. The professor sat in the air conditioned car while I rushed in to get a chocolate malted and a mint chocolate chip ice cream soda (for me). This made us happy as we rushed out of town.

There’s not much in the way of cities or excitement between Madison and Minneapolis as far as we could tell but the Wisconsin Dells, an enormous resort area with a lot of highway traffic. We were relieved to make it to Minneapolis, err, actually a suburb called Brooklyn Park.

We took a day’s rest in Minneapolis and spent two nights in the same hotel. The day we spent at the hotel involved: napping (Joanne and both dogs), reading (both humans), some knitting (you know who) and several walks for everybody. We were wrecked with exhaustion after the moving adventures and two full days in the car.

Although we hadn’t planned to visit much with anybody on this “moving” trip because of the time constraints and juggling two dogs, we managed to see a friend in Minneapolis for dessert on Sunday night and dinner on Monday night. The dogs were able to sleep comfortably in their portable crates in our car while we ate in her apartment. Again, we thank our lucky stars for the cool weather in Minneapolis that allowed us to leave the dogs in the car with the windows down in the summer time. (an absolute impossibility in the southern US.)

Tuesday morning, bright and early, we ventured off towards 1) northern Minnesota and 2) Grand Forks. We’d planned to ship the professor’s car but at the last moment, a good friend of ours in Kentucky needed to get to northern Minnesota…and we had a car for him! He left the car at his parents’ vacation cottage on a lake, just a short detour from the highway. We got to meet his family, who fed us apple cake, ice cream, and made us feel very welcome! Then we headed out again, in cold and pouring rain, towards North Dakota.

We got to Grand Forks that evening and again called for food to be delivered. (food by delivery was the norm, as we couldn’t leave the dogs in the hotel rooms alone, and didn’t want to get back in the car.) We checked out a new set of sidewalks, and this time, everyone slept through the night without a problem. We were exhausted…except when someone made noise outside at 2 am. Sally dog told them exactly what she thought of them! We shushed her, but she had a point. They deserved a barking from somebody…

On Tuesday afternoon we heard there was a small problem with our house purchase arrangements and we might not be able to get into the house on Wednesday. We were worried—but so tired that we focused only on crossing the border.

Back in (2) cars on Wednesday at 7:30 in the morning, we drove to the border, got through without any problem, and drove straight to the credit union outside of Winnipeg to straighten out details. Our first official act in Manitoba on this trip involved signing our mortgage papers. Then we grabbed lunch and drove through Winnipeg to meet our real estate agent at our new home in Crescentwood. (near Corydon Ave., if you live in town...)

It’s beautiful! The professor had to go purchase necessities like shower curtains and toilet paper right away. The dogs and I had to walk the neighborhood, rest, and explore our new home. It’s been 1300 miles and 5 days to get here…or over a year, if you count it from last July, when the professor was nominated to be a Canadian Research Chair at the University of Manitoba.

(No sign of our belongings yet, although it's possible that will happen later today or tomorrow...I hold out hope!)