Google says the first leg of the trip is 502 miles and should take less than 8 hours.  I’m skeptical.

With the camper and Sparky, I’m guessing 10 hours, so we were on the road at 6:30 am.  I used to leave for school at 6:30 every morning, so I know it’s not early, but now it feels like 0-dark stupid.

Sparky loves car rides, but I don’t know why.  He usually just sits there and stares at me.  He’s thinking driving can’t be too hard if I can do it.  Since I’ve caved on almost everything else, he knows I will let him drive eventually.  Ten hours in a car is a long time for anyone.

Towing the camper, I find my range at 65 mph is 150 miles.  That gives a little safety margin.  It also gives Sparky a break every few hours.

Sparky pretty much just sleeps.  He and I have the same morning attitude.  Wake up after sunrise, then shamble around for as long as it takes.  Our first stop was the last travel plaza before entering Indiana.  Sparky took a big dump, marked some trees, and reluctantly got back in the truck.

That was around 9 am, so Sparky got a bowl of breakfast.  He didn’t touch it.  For the rest of the trip, he didn’t eat or drink anything.  It’s like he went into hibernation mode.  On our way through Indiana, I had prison salad and a picked egg for lunch, and found it entirely sufficient. 

In Elkhart, Indiana, we passed an RV and Motor Home Museum and Hall of Fame.  I really want to see that.  I’ve been to the Louvre and most the good Smithsonian museums, and they were nice.  A good RV museum would be up there with a museum of flying saucers and jet packs.  Maybe on the way back.  Or a different trip, whatever, I’m going.

I had considered a route that bypassed Chicago, but it was complicated, so I stayed on I-90.  That was a charlie-foxtrot, but no car accidents or wrong turns, so that’s a win.

Madison Campground is not called a resort or park because it’s about the size and shape of a baseball field in the middle of an industrial park.  That’s fine because it’s a 1000 ft off the highway and surrounded by the types of restaurants that people go to for a quick lunch.  Sparky and I took a nice walk around the U-Store-It place next door. 

On the other side of the highway, there is a tourist attraction called the Pink Elephant.  It has a 4.5 star rating, so after setting up camp, we had to check it out.

Sparky still had road-face, so he’s not at his best.  I took some photos that looked like the elephant was pooping him out, but Sparky didn’t think it was very dignified.  He asked me not to post those.

Here is the photo, cropped to remove the pooping context.  From Sparky’s expression, you can see that he remains stoic, but doesn’t understand why we can’t live in our house anymore.

The Madison Campground would be a nice campground for a Soviet Bloc housing complex.  It has all the amenities, but they are like the Pink Elephant.  There is a dog park, but Sparky resented my attempt to get him to play with Mr. Moose in there.  He blamed me for the obstacle course made from pallets and the dog shit that wasn’t picked up.

We went back to the camper and had a quiet night.  Playing fetch in a 16 foot box isn’t easy.  By throwing Mr. Moose on to the little shelf, Sparky had to go into his lair, and jump just right to retrieve his buddy.  , Sparky appreciated my attempts to make it interesting. 

His appetite came back and he ate his daily allotment.