Chicago Trip 2, Day 3

Day 2 (Sunday) was a day of no (new) counties. At this point in my trips to Chicago, it takes quite a bit of work to pick up some new counties. I spent the day going to church, checking in and just relaxing.

But Monday was a day of some action. I left training and headed north. I had allowed 30 minutes in my schedule for "traffic" and heading north on I-94 did provide some traffic. Still, it wasn't that bad, but it didn't clear up until I was nearly in Wisconsin.

In Milwaukee, I headed up US-41 north, being the first of many (many!) limited-access highways I would travel today (not including Interstates which are of course also limited-access). About 2:30 into my trip, I picked up my first new county of the day, Fond du Lac (#38), which was followed shortly after by Winnebago (#39)

At this point I got onto US-10 / WI-441, which is (another!) limited-access highway, serving as a circular bypass around Appleton, WI. I got off at Oneida Road, which is a county-line type road. I attempted to take a sign of the county sign (Calumet (#40)), which was located up on the highway (while I was on the offramp) but traffic behind me was not amused and my camera was not cooperating. In any case, as past experiences have noted, it probably wouldn't have come out very well anyways :-)

Turning right around on Oneida Road, I got back on to WI-10 west. I got off on US-45 west, a road which for the first bit straddles the line between the counties of Outagamie (#41) and Waupaca (#42), before swerving to pick up both of them. At Clintonville, I headed NE on to WI-22 into Shawano (#43), and in the city of Shawano, I headed north onto WI-47/55. This took me into Menominee county and reservation (#44). Menominee county is coterminous with a Menominee Indian reservation. I enjoyed it for about 30 seconds before turning around. Of course it did get the Mah na mah na song stuck in my head for the rest of the night.

A note about that song. It's very catchy of course. If you haven't heard it, the Muppet version is of course the best, which you can watch on YouTube here. Warning: It is very catchy and if you watch it you will be singing it all day. Warning #2: If you come to my house, please do not sing it. If a crazed lunatic came up to me and said that if I didn't make one member of my family cry within the next 30 seconds, he would kill my entire family, this is how I would do it. I'm not sure why it is, but singing this song will cause my daughter to burst into tears. Which of course can be a problem since it's so dang catchy, it's hard to remember not to sing it.

Anyways......

Returning back on WI-47/55 into Shawano county, I turned left at the main intersection to continue on Business-29. The next step of my route had me going onto 29-East, another! limited-access highway. I had passed WI-29 south of Shawano, but I thought if I headed east on Business-29 it might bring me to 29 faster (and further-east). In the end, it was probably a wash - both ways were 25 mph for a few miles. I got off the highway at WI-160, which took me into the town of Pulaski. If you take a look at that link, you will see that the city of Pulaski somehow decided that it wanted the entirety of its city limits to be in Brown county (#45), so it took a chunk out of Shawano and Oconto (#46) counties. That meant that I had to take a short out-and-back on WI-32 north to pick up Oconto, but that wasn't a problem.

I took WI-32 to CR B East. Quick addendum on my post of yesterday, where I complained that county roads were numbered only on map sites and not "on the ground". Well, I mean except for Wisconsin. Wisconsin is all about the lettered county roads. I soon got on to US-41 south to I-43 south, which I took for a few miles circling around the frozen tundra of Lambeau field. Well, Green Bay anyways. I did not actually see the frozen tundra, since it was late and I didn't feel like making a detour, but I have no doubt that it was, in fact, frozen, given that it was snowing off and on all evening. Yes, it is April 9th, why do you ask?

I exited I-43 on to WI-57, which was a (nother, and this time un-marked) limited-access highway. By now, I was running low on gas, but gas stations were not prevalent. I really was not going to enjoy running out of gas up in the "point" of Wisconsin. I spent a few minutes on Google trying to figure out what 'Sconsinites call that little point that sticks out north of Green Bay. If anybody knows, leave it in the comments. I missed the turn off to one gas station, but then found another. It was a bit off of the highway, which was kind of annoying, but when I got there, I could tell why I had been led there


County sign!!! That would be Kewaunee county (#47). Back on the highway, I followed it north to get the county that's at the tip of the whatever-it's-called, Door (#48), and then it was time to turn around.


I thought that I was done picking up counties as I headed back to Chicago on I-43 south, but I had forgotten that I-43 would take me through Manitowoc (#49) and Sheboygan (#50), a total of 13 new counties for the day