Our Midwest Summer Road Trip

Ok, I started writing this post last Summer, but as usual six months later it's still not done. If you see any references to our "recent" Summer trip, just pretend it's still August 2021!

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Did you travel anywhere last Summer? 

Over the end of June and start of July we took a two and a half week road trip through the Midwest and explored some new to us cities, towns and well known locations. The main destination of our trip was Chicago. I'd been wanting to visit Chicago for such a long time, and we had actually planned to spend Spring Break there in 2020 - but we all know why that didn't happen! I'm so happy we finally made it there this past Summer and it's one of my new favorite cities. We'll definitely be back!  

Originally we thought about flying to Chicago or even taking the overnight Amtrak train from Denver, but ultimately settled on making it a road trip. I figured that while we were right by the Great Lakes it would be nice to explore the area a little more and we'd need a car for that. The original plan was to take the sleeper train to Chicago (something we've never done before) and then get a rental car to explore the Great Lakes after a week in the Windy City, but with rental cars being a hot commodity last Summer and there being no guarantee that a booking would actually stick (no matter how high the price) we figured it was safest to take our own car. Driving from home also gave us the freedom to add in some extra stops along the way, extra space for luggage (our minivan fits a LOT), and no need to lug around car seats to use in a rental.

As well as Chicago, our trip included Detroit, St Louis, Kansas City, Mackinac Island, Mount Rushmore and more.  We drove through ten states on this trip: Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Kansas. I've got a lot of new states to cross off my list! We visited world famous landmarks, stopped at quirky roadside attractions, ate all sorts of new to us foods, crossed mighty rivers, took in lots of art, visited amazing museums, and caught up with friends. Our good friends from New York met up with us in Chicago and spent the better part of two weeks with us before we went our separate ways to head home. It was so good to catch up with them and the kids love having other kids to play with when we travel. This was our third Summer trip together so it's become something of a tradition. Last year they stayed with us in Colorado and a few Summers back we spent time with them in New York before traveling to Boston together.    

 

Here's a look at the route we took for this road trip. We added in some detours to visit various places rather than driving the most direct route. Google tells me that it was about fifty two hours of driving all up - and I can tell you that it definitely felt that way! Most of our driving days were around six hours of driving, but there were a few nine hour drives thrown in towards the end. While it was nice to be able to add in a few destinations that wouldn't otherwise be on our radar, I've got to say that the driving part of road trips is definitely not the highlight. Who ever came up with that "It's about the journey, not the destination" phrase clearly did not spend 50 hours in a car driving through the mid-west! It's always about the destination if you ask me!

Let's take a look at our trip day by day...