July 2nd: A day on the road (and the water)

Monday morning we headed out to make our way west. The ultimate goal is South Dakota: the Badlands, the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, the Devils Tower in Wyoming and who knows what else. Will our goal be realized? Who knows, stick around and we'll see what develops. A couple of last minute stops: the credit union ATM, Andersons for duct tape (after 35 years of boating I never intentionally travel without duct tape), Speedway to top up the diesel, and we are on our way. Sandy needs to make a house payment so we scope out that the furthest westerly Huntington Bank in Ohio is in Montpelier so that'll be the first stop. Turns out that it's not every day that a Toledo customer makes their house payment in Montpelier so Sandy got a chance to chat vacations with the tellers. It gave me the oportunity to consult the maps and see which way we wanted to go. Ohio and Indiana Turnpikes, I-94 through Chicago and then back on I-90 (the Illinois TollRoad) up to Wisconsin. Fairly uneventful other than a few stops for fuel trying to get a sense for what the gauge is telling us. Sunday on the way back from Pennsylvania we got the gauge pegged on the absolute lowest reading but then only managed to put 20 gallons in a 26 gallon tank so it appears we have some leeway. Sandy says I can't test that theory though. We stopped at the Welcome Center in Wisconsin to see about state parks and campgrounds and the lady told us of her favorite, Devils Lake State Park. She said it was very popular. We decided to take a chance and see if we could scam a campsite. The GPS fed us a series of directions until we were paralleling Lake Wisconsin on its southern shore. The next turn was "right on highway 113. Sandy says "there must be a causeway across the lake". Smartass me says "yeah either that or a ferry". We reach the turn and the road goes 100 yards and dead ends at the lake. ????? We look across and there goes the ferry to the other side. Okay, cool, this was unexpected. Eddie got a walkwhile we waited. Soon other cars are in line, the ferry returns and we pull on board. It's free. Hey, this is even better than the rides at Conneaut Lake Park! A short ride and we are on our way on the north shore.

A few miles down the road and we find our way to Devils Lake State Park.  Yes, they have a site for the night with electricity so we're in business.  We set up and read the park info and realize we've stumbled onto a gem.  Back to the campground office to reserve a second night and then we're off to the lake to cool off from the 99 degree day.  Tomorrow we go exploring.  See you then.