Day 22
Today is a big day of driving, going through 3 states – Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois!
First, meet our new road trip buddy, a prairie dog, to remind us of our time in Badlands NP and South Dakota as we leave this beautiful state.
Any ideas for a name? He joins our existing road trip buddies for the rest of the trip home. A few more states to go!
Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time for longer visits in the next few states, but we’re close enough from home now to more easily come back for future trips.
We’ve made it through Minnesota and Wisconsin so far, crossing over the Mississippi River in between!
Of course, we also had to stop for lunch at Culver’s while in Wisconsin! Don’t forget the cheese curds and a sundae! Yuuummmm!
Driving on…
Many hours later, we finally get to Chicago. Even though we can’t stay longer in Chicago this trip, we had to at least pass through and get some Chicago deep-dish pizza! We found a Lou Malnati’s shop along the way, known for having some of the best deep dish in the area. Lou’s father was one of the original creators of the deep dish pizza, and after working with his father, Lou opened his own shop, which has now been passed down in his family and has many locations around Chicago.
There was a really long wait to be seated, so we decided to get it to go and had a little picnic at a nearby park. The butter-crust is our new favorite deep dish. So buttery and crunchy. The sauce was so sweet and savory, made fresh from California tomatoes. All so yummy!
Did you know that you can order the pizzas to ship to your house at Tastes of Chicago? We’ll definitely be doing that!
What a delicious way to watch the sunset and end the night after a long day’s drive!
Day 23
We continue driving through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania today! Almost home!
While passing through Ohio, we visited our last National Park of this trip, Cuyahoga Valley National Park! It’s a relatively small park, but a great place to stop for a quick little hike amidst some beautiful scenery. On the trail we took, we found a cool waterfall! There’s also a visitor’s center to learn more about this park and the area in general.
This is an interesting stop and I’m sure we’re not doing proper justice to this area. We’ll have to return for another visit in the future, but for now, we have to continue driving East.
We finally crossed into our final state of this road trip – Pennsylvania! Since we’re passing near Pittsburgh, we had to stop at Primanti Bros, an iconic restaurant of this end of the state, and try their self proclaimed “almost famous” mile-high sandwiches. Yummm!
Driving on… Finally stretch now!
After a few more hours of driving, we finally made it back home! It’s been an awesome 3 weeks of exploring the country, crossing coast to coast through 24 states, tasting their iconic foods, and visiting their unique attractions, state parks, and national parks (10 new national parks that we haven’t been to before). What an amazing 9,765 mile road trip, our longest yet!
If you want to read about our entire road trip, please click the Index link below to see the full list of posts.
To see more pictures, visit the many posts on my Facebook page and Instagram (@adventures_by_anne).
Thank you if you’ve been following along! I hope this has been fun for you too and that you’ll be able to embark on your own trip soon too, however long or short.
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Adventures By Anne 