Day 2, Saturday, July 6th

We had a short day today, only 430 miles, so we slept late and didn't leave until 7:30.  It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood when we left and we crossed the Illinois river from our hotel in East Peoria to Peoria and made a short visit to a nice little park on the river aptly named Riverside Park.  There is a memorial to US history.

But the main reason for our stop was to see the tribute to a Peoria hometown boy, the singer songwriter, Dan Fogleberg. If you were listening to music in the 70s and 80s you are no doubt familiar with his songs.  He wasn't as big as Elvis of course.  Elvis got a statue and Dan only got some rocks but they are nice rocks.

Here is a link to his Wikipedia page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Fogelberg

Then it was on to our destination for the day, Eagle River, Wisconsin.  Some photos from the road.

Weather and the ride was delightful.  Well that is until we got to the Wisconsin state line and were met with miles and miles of construction.  It was there that our interstate, I-39, merged with and ran with I-90 until well past Madison were they diverged.  It was mostly three lanes but there was a huge amount of traffic and they were all in a big, big hurry and oh yeah we were again dodging intermittent rain, sometimes heavy for a few minutes.

We were glad when I-39 diverged and even happier when we got off it and on to non-interstate more scenic roads.  And the scenery surely did change from flat farmland to a more rolling heavily wooded landscape.

Tomorrow - no interstate and we get to the UP of Michigan where the fun really begins.