Day 7- St Ignace To Appleton, WI

The rain and high wind continued all through the night and we woke to the continued drumming of the raindrops on the camper roof. Normally, I would be lulled to sleep by this sound but I’d had enough. After breakfast, there was a bit of a lull so Carl and I tried to hurry through tucking everything into it’s proper place and then dashed about with some haste to get hooked on before the rains began once more in earnest. The drive to Appleton, WI, some 277 miles promised to be a long one, fighting wind and rain. Little did we know we would also fight fog and horrible road conditions a good part of the way. Our route today took us south along Lake Michigan and on most days you could tell what a scenic drive it would be. Along the road we spotted lupines growing and several smokehouse sending wonderful aromas into the air. Somewhere near the Hiawatha Golf course, we began to see signs warning of blowing sand and around the very next bend, there they were, not the massive shifting dunes of the Sahara but dunes, none the less, mile after mile of them. Just beyond was the Lake, acting like a proper ocean with white caps and wind driven waves that some people would enjoy boogie boarding on. I did manage a few photos today although I suspect they will be as grey and mean looking as I felt while taking them. Eventually, we came upon a sign that informed us we had crossed into the central time zone and just like that it was an hour earlier. Don’t know what I would have done without that sign. And even though it was that hour earlier, we were still hungry. Lunch found us at a county operated camp ground/ picnic area right on the shore. Imagine our surprise when we spotted a dump station and fresh water to refill our tank on our way out. The sky became quite ugly looking and please don’t take this wrong but I was actually looking for tornadoes. There was a very long line of thunderheads and smack in the middle, I saw what could only be described as a wall cloud, the kind that are know to rotate and produce twisters. I kept watching for miles but didn’t see anything except some teasers protruding from the bottom. Carl clarified my position on photographing tornadoes during this trip which is a definite yes, as long as we are not in imminent danger. By 4:00 PM, we were both beat so pulled into, yes, you guessed it, the Super Wal-mart in Appleton. After parking the camper, we grabbed the grocery list and our environmentally sound reusable bags to get groceries for the next week. The weather isn’t looking very good for our visit to the Wisconsin Dells tomorrow with more severe storms predicted in the area for another 36 hours. We’ll just have to play it by ear. I can’t believe it’s been a week already. We've traveled 1364 miles to date.