After a good sleep at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Chicago - Northwest, in Elgin, Illinois we quickly checked out the pool, ate the two leftover slices of our The "Malnati Chicago Classic" deep-dish pizza from last night, and proceeded on our way.
Filling up for fuel - the most expensive fill yet ($3.97/gallon - yikes!) - before hitting the interstate, Derek had a brief chat with the cashier who had commented on Derek's newly acquired Sun Studio t-shirt. The cashier is a musician and wondered if Derek recorded music and happened to have a card. ;-)
We continued to be nickel and dimed the rest of the way out of "Ill-a-nnoy-is" as there are tolls every few miles it seems and some even on the exits. We were thankful to reach Wisconsin where there were no tolls on our route and mildly surprised that Illinois didn't try to toll drivers exorbitant amounts just to get the heck out of their state!
We inadvertently missed a toll for $0.80 on our escape from Chicago last night, when we realized as we zoomed by at 70 mph (~120 km/h) that we were in an i-pass lane. Oops. Hopefully they don't come after us, but we'll see. Apparently you can pay missed tolls online, but not if you live outside the US. We're supposed to mail in the $0.80, but I think we're also supposed to report which plaza it was. Ha .. don't have a clue which roads we were on, just know that we managed to make it out of Chicago in one piece. Side note - in the city we were cut off by a cabbie who snuck in front of us on our right (we were in the right lane). As he nudged his way in, Derek had a couple words with him, wondering what his deal was!
Wisconsin was a pleasant drive, complete with the fresh smell of cows at some points along the way. At one point Derek had his shirt pulled up over his nose, and he couldn't figure out why the smell hadn't passed as drove by at 70 mph. Then he realized it was because we were actually following the semi hauling a bunch of cows. ;-)
We found a couple cheese shops (Ehlenbach's Cheese Chalet, Inc near DeForest and Humbird Cheese near Tomah) along the way, and didn't make it past Wisconsin Dells without a quick drive down the strip and a little shopping at the Tanger Outlet! Remembering how disappointed Derek was about missing the mini-golf at Pensacola Beach on Sunday night, I scoped out a couple that looked awesome (I'm sure there were more). But after our shopping experience, we decided it best to once again hit the road and continue NW toward home. I promised Derek 2 mini-golfs sometime in the future, to make up for this 2nd disappointment. =D
We coasted into a fuel station near Baldwin and then re-exited the interstate shortly after at Hudson (just before Minnesota state line) to 'borrow' some wifi from a hotel before deciding whether to push through the night and get home around 4am or stop for the night. Largely due to the helpfulness of the girl working when we drove up, we ended up checking in at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott. We went over to Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar nearby for our first real meal of the day (those leftover slices of pizza from last night sure kept us going!). We had the Cheeseburger and the Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwich, along with a small sampling of traditional hot wings. All was very tasty.
Tomorrow we plan to enjoy the hot breakfast provided by the hotel and the pool/hot tub and be on our way. I suspect we won't make it past Albertville without stopping, but we still plan to be home by tomorrow, in good time!
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