Cross Country, Part Two

The second day of the trip was, an adventure.  I was excited to go to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to see Lake Michigan.  It was really freaking cold...the wind was whipping around and the temperature had to be in the lower 40's, if that.  Not being prepared for the earliest snowfall in recorded history, I only had a sweatshirt with me, so I tried not to spend too much time outside.  Lake Michigan is pretty cool...it's just like the ocean, except you can see Chicago if you squint really hard.  There are also several factories on the beach, so it's interesting in that way.

  Factories on the Beach

Random Family Enjoying the Cold Weather

Concrete Benches on the Lake

From Lake Michigan, I drove up to Chicago.  While getting on the Chicago Skyway, there is a McDonald's that is so weird.  It is in the middle of the highway, but not like a rest stop.  It's just sitting there in the middle of the highway.  I wasn't able to get a picture myself, but I took this picture from Wikipedia.

The drive through looks like another lane to pay the toll...

So I drove up to Chicago, got lost in a scary looking part of town, finally found my way back to the highway and headed into Illinois.  There isn't much to Illinois either.  A lot of farms.  This was my first sighting of the really awesome wind turbines...don't know why, but I think these are so freaking cool.

From Illinois, I drove into Iowa.  Iowa boasts a lot of "World's Most" items, for example:

• Ripley's Believe It or Not has dubbed Burlington's Snake Alley the most crooked street in the world
• Strawberry Point is the home of the world's largest strawberry
• Crystal Lake is home to a statue of the world's largest bullhead fish
• Elk Horn in the largest Danish settlement in the United States (I saw this...it's a windmill and a bakery...pretty awesome)
• Fenlon Place Elevator in Dubuque is the world's steepest and shortest railway
• And many many more...

I got to see a world's largest while I was there.  It was pretty amazing...

Oh, yeah...World's Largest Truckstop

I stayed in Iowa overnight, just north of Des Moines.  I drove about 500 miles and 8 hours on this day...