I have not written in a while. I haven’t felt like it since we left my baby with Mike’s angel sister, Kris. Kris was patient and wonderful, and made us feel at ease, but of course leaving her was really hard on me. I’m still adjusting and miss my baby every day. We left for Chicago after a week with Mike’s family.
Our original plan was to skip Chicago, but I was curious and wanted to so see it, even if people were saying it was too dangerous. We stayed in a beautiful little town of Kankakee outside Chicago and ventured into the city by train (we didn’t want to drive with our big kayaks (and all our possessions).
We had listened to the “We Travel There with Lee Huffman” podcast (highly recommend it if you are traveling), and wanted to visit a couple of pizza places that served deep dish. We ended up going to Lou Malnati’s Pizza and it was absolutely delicious.
We walked thru Millennium Park until we reached the famous Cloud Gate or the Bean, as Chicagoans call this incredible sculpture inspired by liquid mercury. The Bean is 33 feet high, 42 feet wide and 66 feet long. Weighing about 110 tons!
We had wine at the City Winery along the Chicago River Walk and it was pretty entertaining to watch people kayaking in the river, mostly because they look so tiny trying to avoid big tourist boats and yachts! Right in front of us was the Marina City buildings, a couple of towering corn cob cylindrical apartment buildings with car parking areas on the first few floors. A car could easily drop in the water at any second! We also walked to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and listened to a jazz concert.
I’m so glad we ventured into Chicago despite its reputation. We had a wonderful time, and we absolutely have to come back (during summer or fall of course!).
We left Kankakee, and drove to Holland State Park on Lake Michigan. We were between Lake Michigan and Lake Macatawa. We tried Kayaking there, but both the waves and current were pretty intense. After an hour of paddling, we decided to just go to the beach instead and relax. Our days there were pretty great. We had a great time in the sand dunes at Ottawa Beach.
Place was pretty crowded, but we managed to keep to ourselves in these sea of people craving a little sun.
We crossed the Michigan Peninsula and looked for a place close to the border with Canada. We ended up in Algonac during a weekend. Big mistake!!! Tons of kids partying at the St Clair Lake for the last weekend before school started! The place was a nightmare to the point where we were considering leaving. Drunken kids being belligerent and loud until late at night, I believe most of them got kicked out around midnight. The following day the place looked deserted. We crossed the border the following day.
Crossing was somewhat easy, we had our vaccines and had to get a COVID test 72 hrs before crossing. However, when we got there, the immigration official said we’d have to quarantine because we didn’t have the App? I didn’t know and we asked if we could go out, download the App, and then come back in. He ended up just getting our info in the system and let us through!
We had lunch at beautiful place overlooking Brights Grove Beach near Kennedy Acres. Then, we crashed at my cousin’s place in London. Absolutely beautiful family. We went together to Grand Bend Beach in Lake Huron and to Niagara Falls… Canadian side.
The beach was crowded and we were told to take down our sun shade but we were able to get free umbrellas to rent while we were there so it all worked out. The water wasn’t too cold and the sun not unbearable. The kids had fun playing in the water and afterwards we went to a restaurant to eat and a candy store for sweets. Niagara Falls was spectacular! From the Canadian side you can see the entire American and Canadian falls and at night they’re lit with red, white, green, and blue lights. We enjoyed the falls until after dark then ate dinner in the tower restaurant. The dining room rotated so you could see the entire city and falls as you ate. The motion made us a little queasy but we still had an amazing meal.
We are now staying at Mallorytown, home of the 1000 islands. We went on a tour to see the islands, and enjoy the day.
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