Private hootch is allowable on sleeper cars, and Amtrak booze prices are about in line with that of a restaurant- not bad! I can work with that.
And if you’re in a sleeper car you get one free alcoholic drink with your dinner.
So, we just got back from our Summer vacation. Had a fine old time. Since I just got a new vehicle, we decided to make it a Wisconsin road trip, and we played it by ear. We sort of followed the ‘rule of twos’ suggested here, except I often drove more than 200 miles at a time and we never stayed at any place more than one night.
First, we drove up to Ludington, MI and took the SS Badger ferry to Manitowoc, WI. That was an experience in itself. 4 hours to get across the lake. We got hit with some weather, rough seas and heavy rain, and trying to walk across the deck was fun. I tried to get my ‘sea legs’ but never quite got there, staggering around like I was drunk.
From there we had planned to spend a couple days exploring Door county, but most places in the peninsula were booked up and the day we got there was a rainy washout, so we just drove up the peninsula and back, and ended up finding a hotel near Manitowoc with an indoor pool and an attached restaurant right on Lake Michigan for some indoor fun. Awesome views of the angry waves from our room and the picture windows in the restaurant.
Next day was clear and sunny. We drove to Green Bay, visited Lambeau Field and the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary. Then we drove to Appleton and did a ‘Fox Trot’ walking tour of the downtown and the Fox River, then we drove down to Lake Winnebago and spent the night in Oshkosh.
From there we went to the Dells. Got a hotel room with a nice balcony view of the Wisconsin River.Took an Upper Dells boat tour and a ‘Lost Canyon’ horse and wagon tour through these sandstone cliffs that were so close together in spots the horses and wagon could barely get through. That was very cool.
Then we went to The House on the Rock and stayed at the House on the Rock resort. Now, I had read stuff about THotR and seen pictures, but nothing can prepare one for the sheer, enormous, batcrap insanity of the place. It is beyond bonkers. For those who may not know of it, an eccentric guy built a sprawling, maze-like house on a big hill and populated it with millions of pieces of crazy antiques / junk he obsessively collected over years. It’s like a bad acid trip, or a nightmare stuck inside the mind of a madman.
On the way home we picked up some fresh Wisconsin cheese curds (squeaky!) and some 10 year old cheddar. That aged cheddar is amazing. I was kind of hoping to find some even older, but I can’t imagine older cheese being any more sharp than the 10 year.
Very fun trip. I want to go back, spend more time exploring Door county, and maybe head up to the Apostle Islands and do some kayaking. Next Summer!
I had actually just pulled this post up because I find myself with an excess of vacation time to be used by the EoY after a trip was cxl’d. Glad to year you enjoyed yours.
I am thinking about a driving trip, possibly to Tail of the Dragon in NC/TN border, 700+ miles, so two days each way. Last year’s was 3200 miles in 10 days - 3 days & 1100 miles there, 2 days home & about 200 miles/day driving with others so you can see why 200 mi every other day wouldn’t be for me.
I did find it interesting when I tried the AI trip planner suggested by @Whack-a-Mole that I have been to all but one of the original suggested destinations, more than once.
Plan A was an adventure trip that can’t happen (which is why I have the time now) so Plan B (before the fire closing the North side) was a rim-to-rim trip thru the Grand Canyon; unfortunately, not in shape for rim-to-rim-to-rim right now, especially if there’s no support at the halfway point. If anyone has suggestions along those lines, lemme hear 'em…for October.
*No camping on either of them, either one-way or round trip would be in a day.
Yeah, 200 miles at a time is nothing. Once in my 20s I drove from south Florida to Michigan in a 24 hour straight shot, and I used to do the drive from the Detroit area to the Porcupine Mountains all at once (about 12 hours), but these days 300-400 miles at a time is my sweet spot.
I’ve been roadtripping for more than 40 years and I’ve never seen anyplace like it, and probably never will again. (Maybe if you combined all the Meow Wolf locations into one and added an antique mall it might be close) I thought it was fantastic.
I didn’t know what to think about it. It’s the stuff of nightmares. My wife was fast-walking past the roomfuls of weird old dolls and clown toys staring at her, going nope nope nope. It’s the stuff of nightmares. As one who has a strong strain of OCD running in my family, and having hoarder tendencies myself (fortunately kept at bay by my orderly, neat wife), I couldn’t help wondering what kind of mind, what compulsion could drive a person to collect such a flabbergasting amount of weird old stuff. And one of the people who work there told us the house didn’t even hold all of the items he collected- that there’s a warehouse full of more stuff, and sometimes they swap out some of the stuff in the house to change things up.
Sounds a bit like the American Treasure Tour; 100,000’ of assorted stuff
The point about 200 miles a day is for people who are not trying to get someplace. It’s for people who have all year to slowly meander around the country, and the point is being at stops, or lazing your way to the next one without expending undue effort doing so. IOW, do nothing that will harsh your carefully tended mellow.
Setting up & tearing down an RV for movement is (I’m told) a 60-90 minute job at each end. In a vehicle that isn’t happy much above ~65mph, that means from end of fun at one end to start of fun at the other with 200 miles in between is about 6 hours; maybe 7 if you’re mostly not on an interstate and rubbernecking or stopping in quaint little towns. Sounds like a full day’s work for a retiree.
Yeah, when I need to drive a long distance, it’s 80+mph for 10-12 hours stopping only to refuel the car and pee. But this ain’t that and that ain’t this.
If I wanted to RV in an area distant from where I am, I’d fly to there, then rent the RV. Ferrying a land barge the 400 boring miles from where I live to the very beginnings of any interesting scenery is not my idea of a well-spent vacation no matter how I break the task up.
YMMV of course.
I checked out the link-- yeah, the House on the Rock is kind of like that, except much creepier, dustier, less organized, and jankier. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted to see the place for years, and I’m glad I can now say I did, but once is enough. This one star tripadvisor review of the place is amusing and not incorrect.
I get it, and I did sort of follow the ‘rule of twos’ advice to a point, driving no more than a few hundred miles a day, and I stopped driving by early afternoon once we had figured out what we wanted to do and where we wanted to stay for the day. It did result in what felt like a mellow trip, despite the fact we covered a lot of ground and saw and did quite a bit. I was going to try to drive home all the way from the House on the Rock, between a 7-8 hour drive, but at the halfway point I decided I was over doing that much driving in one day and we found a place to stop.
Haha 
I’m with you on part of that idea, but I thought when you left from home you’re fully stocked & ready to go. Fridge is full, cabinets are full of pots/pans/dishes, etc. Toys are in the back in the toy hauler section. Those things aren’t so easy to carry in your luggage.
I’ve never even seriously looked into rental RVing (half-arsed looked one time, & it wasn’t inexpensive, both a base fee & something like 50¢/mile + about 6 GPM {gallons per mile} for all of the work/driving a land barge). Do rentals typically come with all of the things you’d need to live in it; sheets, towels, pots/pans/dishes/silverware, spices, etc?
Oh there are parts that are downright creepy, & dusty, & seemingly random stuff thrown together. Any good marketer is going to show you the best highlights, not the weird & dark. 
That being, said, I do recommend going.
Everything I “know” about RVing comes from a good friend of many years who did full-time RVing for about 3 years in his mid 50s. We talked a lot about it then. He’s a pilot co-worker who’ll retire in ~6 months and he’s once again just bought a new RV and he & the missus will live aboard the thing with no fixed address whatever. Just slowly meandering the countryside until a health or age problem overtakes one or both them.
So my knowledge is all vicarious and very spotty.
Myself I think I’d never own one, but the idea of renting one is certainly doable. I’ve never done it, but current GF & I have made noises about giving it a try for a month or so probably in the Spring when her world has settled down enough she has that much free time available in contiguous blocks..
ISTM it’d have to leased like an AirBnB: fully kitted out with everything you need to live there except food. I know when I’ve rented houseboats on lakes that’s how they’re equipped.