New Places, Big New Adventures!

Fiasco

This week was a whirlwind! It started rough as soon as we arrived. Remember in a previous post when I complimented Wal-Mart and their pickup service. It’s a time saver and works great, every time except this week. We arrived to pick up our order just to receive a message that it would be delayed less than 2 hours. No biggie. So, we went and had supper, came back an hour later and waited. At the 2-hour mark, I called just to get a time estimate. Apparently, they were very far behind, and it was going to be another hour. On that note, we went back to the RV, where the kids and I finished setting everything up and got ready for bed. It was close to 9:00pm when we finally received a message that our order was ready for picked. Colton drove out there, checked in and waited. He waited for 45 minutes before he finally went inside to see what the holdup was. Other people were receiving their groceries, so he thought he was next, but no one ever came. Apparently, even though Colton checked in that he was there and waiting for his groceries, right at 9:30pm, they shut everything down and quit bringing groceries out. After having to speak with a manager, Colton was finally able to get our order and made it home just before 11pm. That’s when we discovered we were missing items that we had paid for. So much for easy and efficient. On a positive note, the Wal-Mart help desk was great and refunded my missing items quickly.

Kankakee State Park

Kankakee River State Park (illinois.gov) is huge! The campground has 4 different loops of campsites and a 10-mile bike trail. The Kankakee River runs through the park and Rock Creek is also on the bike trail. It rained most of the week, so we didn’t get to explore a whole lot, unfortunately. We did get out on a bike ride and explored the area. Our mission was to find a hidden cave and waterfall. It was supposed to be a secret trail and apparently, it’s a well-kept secret because we couldn’t find it. The map we had was terrible and we eventually gave up. On the way back to the RV, Rylen was messing around on his bike, made a mistake, crashed into Lylah and Lylah took a tumble off her bike. She skinned her knee and bloodied up her toe and was in too much pain to ride her bike back to the campsite, so Colton and Rylen went to get the truck and came back to pick her up. That ended our exploration of the park.

Kankakee State Park Photo Gallery

Day Trip to Chicago

On Friday, we decided to make the trip to Chicago. Colton was very skeptical about traveling in Chicago. I did my best to reassure him that everything would be fine and we would have fun, but he still held on to his pessimistic expectations of the big city. I thought I maybe had him convinced that Chicago wouldn’t be that bad, until we tried to park in the parking ramp. The Chicago police force had swarmed the parking ramp we had already paid to park in. We tried multiple ways to get in but it was impossible. I mean DOZENS of police cars for blocks. So much for easing Colton’s concerns.

Since we couldn’t park in the ramp, we made our way to another location further into the downtown area. After a long drive to Chicago, driving around police vehicles for a half an hour, three bottles of water, and waiting at every red light, my bladder couldn’t take it anymore. Downtown Chicago, I ditched my family, jumped out of the truck at a red light and went to a store to find a bathroom. Thankfully, were I bailed at was only two blocks away from our destination, Harry Potter: Magic at Play. It took Colton and the kids another half an hour to find parking and meet up with me. Once we all found each other again, we went to play at the Harry Potter experience.

Harry Potter: Magic at Play Photo Gallery