41 - Talk about a slow boat to China .....

We had the brilliant idea of heading to Chicago so we could kayak the Chicago River.  We found a place to put them into the water just a couple of blocks from our Airbnb.  They gave us a great map along with the suggestion to paddle past the inlet to Lake Michigan and continue down the river another mile or two until we reached Chinatown.  We decided that we had to go and were so glad that we did.   We found a great park with an area where we could get out of the boats.  Pedro watched the kayaks while I walked to Chinatown for lunch.  We ruled out Jelly Fish - yes, it was on the menu - after a funny text from our 

friend Janice about Chicago River jellyfish.  

Our lunch including Peking Duck was amazing!

But before we get to Chicago, we had to leave Michigan and crossed into Wisconsin.  Our first stop was Sheboygan Falls so we could have a picnic lunch near the water.  We drove through town and walked around the falls but didn't spend a lot of time there.  It was a cute little town, though.

Next, we headed to Beaver Dam, WI for our next house/pet sit.  We arrived a little early and Kathy - the homeowner - wasn't ' home yet.  No problem! We parked the car, got on the bikes and rode around until we found the local brewery.  The downtown area was cute and the brewery had some fun beers.

Kathy called to let us know she was home so we jumped back on the bikes and headed her way to meet our charges for the week.  Her gang was made up of 3 spaniels (which were my enticement for the sit) and 4 cats (which were Pedro's).   We were immediately in love.  All of the animals were great!  The dogs were Rebel Rose (springer spaniel), Buddy (cocker spaniel) and Sammie (cavalier spaniel).  The cats were Boris, Aurora, Luna and Celeste.  Sammie the cavalier was rescued from a puppy mill and very leery of other humans but we were able to feed and walk her.  

Everyone else, readily accepted any attention 

and the other dogs loved to walk.

 

Kathy's neighborhood is great for walking. We had one park very nearby and another one very close that was on the lake. Because Buddy had some knee issues, we put him in a walker for the longer walks but let him out at the parks. We even took the dogs the moderately short walk to the brewery. It was beautiful on the walk there but we got caught in a torrential rain storm. Thankfully, the staff let us come inside for a few minutes to wait for the worst of the storm to pass. We were all pretty soaked by the time we got home but everyone enjoyed the outing.

In addition to enjoying the animals, we were also able to kayak a couple of days.  We launched once in the lake in Kathy's neighborhood.  We followed the lake around enjoying the houses and paddled toward town and the dam.   We had perfect weather and it was fun seeing town from the water too.

We also drove about 30 minutes to the town of Horicon which happened to be the home of John Deere.  We kayaked towards town but then decided to head further out towards the "floating" bogs and the wildlife.  It was beautiful and we even found some white Pelicans. We were fascinated to discover that the caution sign about how the bogs are actively moving was true.  We tried to follow some charts we had of the area only to discover that a cut through we were trying to find was no more.  Luckily, we were able to retrace our route and safely find our way back.

 

 

Kathy had a large back yard with a fire pit that was great for just hanging out. Our Michigan hosts had given us a small tent that they didn't need any more.  We were telling Kathy and talking about camping - she was taking off with her RV while we were watching the babies.  She mentioned that she had a couple of tents she no longer used and encouraged us to take any that we wanted.  So, we decided to set them all up in her backyard and see which one we liked the best.  Rebel thought it was a great idea and enjoyed hanging out in our temporary tent city.   

 

Kathy had also mentioned that she'd just purchased some plants which she'd not yet planted.  Well, that's no problem.   I simply volunteered Pedro for the job.

All too quickly, our (almost) week was up and it was time to say goodbye to our sweet little pack. We continued heading south and decided to stop and see the state capital of Madison. The town was very nice and we enjoyed walking around the capital square area. Sitting between 2 large lakes, the town was perfect for us as there was water everywhere. They also have a great bike path so we decided to ride our bikes around and, yes, we found another brewery.  We had to try Wisconsin cheese curds - I still don't get them but it was fun to try the local cuisine.

We left Madison and continued south to Chicago for our slow boat to China kayak trip.  We rented a great Airbnb right downtown that came with a garage space.  We were pleasantly shocked - as were our neighbors who watched us park - to find that we actually fit in the garage.  The next morning, we put our kayaks in the Chicago river and did one of our longest and definitely most urban kayak ride to date.  In addition to Chinatown, we also rode through downtown and out to the locks leading into Lake Michigan.  We certainly weren't planning to go through the locks into the lake but it was fun to see downtown Chicago from a different vantage point.

Speaking of Chicago, our friend Janice - who's originally from Chicago - had asked us to watch their cat and house (Bentley wanted to go with them too) in Cocoa Beach for most of September while they went off on their own adventure.  So, the next morning we continued our leisurely but southerly route.  

We'll fill you on that next post!