Green Bay and the U.P.

We saw so many fun things on our trip a couple weeks ago. During the planning phase we wondered how much driving we really wanted to do and how much relaxing…. well, turns out driving is relaxing for us. Let me explain.

At the start of the trip, we knew we could hit the remaining 4 Great Lakes if we timed our driving right and meet our goal of getting in every one of America’s Great Lakes. When we shared the idea with the kids, Natalie (our goal-oriented one) immediately voiced that she not only wanted to make this happen, but that it HAD to happen.  So we took one long day to drive from Milwaukee, all the way up the coast, around the U.P., up a little further (1 hr. each extra each way) to hit Lake Superior, and then down to St. Ignace at the intersection of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron…. all in one day. We started driving around 10 am. (11 am EST). We arrived at our hotel after 11 pm EST. But all was not spent in the car.

Our first stop was Green Bay. We debated stopping in this little Wisconsin town as it was only 2 hours into our longest day of driving, but then figured, what the heck? Who knows when we’ll be back this way.

So we drove through downtown and finally ended up at Bay Beach Amusement Park. This little amusement park, geared toward kids 12 and under is amazing. Not in the way of awesome new rides or out-of-this world thrills. Amazing in the way that admittance is free and rides are fifty-cents to a dollar to ride.

You purchase tickets, like at a fair, for a quarter each, but as you can see most rides aren’t over 2 tickets each. We bought $10 worth knowing we didn’t want to be there too long. (BTW, there is also a little baby pool that is free to get in for those wanting to swim).

Our first ride was the train.

The train’s track took us right up next to the Bay….. this was the view.

Great ferris wheel that incidentally none of us rode!

A great array of little kids rides that Ryan could get on. His distractable personality really shown through. He’d say which ride he wanted to get on and then as we were standing in line he’d say he wanted to get on another one he saw. After switching lines several times, I finally told him we had to get on the next ride he chose… no jumping out of line. He loved them all.  If you look below you can see Ryan and Natalie sitting in the green boat and Ainsley in the purple boat.

Ryan waved to us every time he came around. Can you tell he’s having fun?!

We also bought 1 slushie and 2 snowcones for a whopping $3.50…. total.

At the end of THREE hours, we were finally out of tickets. It was our cheapest afternoon of the whole trip I think!  $13.50 spent on five people and loads of fun. On our way to the car Natalie said,  “Kids don’t expect their parents to stop in the middle of driving to have fun. You guys are the best!”

We headed from Green Bay up the coast and up to Lake Superior. It was 8:30 by the time we squished our toes in the sandy water, which incidentally had a cinnamon hue. The sand was very red, so I’m guessing there’s sediment that makes the water red? Anyone?  I noticed the Lakes have different personalities and red is what I will always associated with Lake Superior.  After playing for about 20 minutes, we got in the car and headed the 1.5 hours to our hotel for the night. We were tired, but felt a surge of satisfaction at having seen Lake Superior!  The kids were great on the ride. They played, read books, did some crafts, slept, and generally entertained each other the entire ride up. So we rewarded them with a movie on our laptop on the way to the hotel.

Tomorrow – probably my favorite day of the trip… even though all of them were great!