Free Birthday cake

Free birthday cake and pool day. - Friday

So it's our first really lazy morning waking up in a lovely comfortable bed, so of course we woke up late.  We've really worked hard at the sightseeing on this trip, so we deserve a bit of a break. 

We had breakfast and a coffee, and when we were finally ready to go out, it was just about lunchtime, so the first stop was Panera for lunch. 

It's a lovely coffee shop that does fairly substantial lunch type things, sandwiches, salad, soups and cakes. It's where I used to go for breakfast when I was staying in the youth hostel in Chicago, so of course I have a loyalty card. 

As I handed over my loyalty card at the checkout, the lady told me, you have a free birthday cupcake this month, it's good now through the end of November. 

As today is our second last day, I asked for it now. 

I had a red velvet cupcake with white topping. 

After my mozzarella and tomato panini, I couldn't manage it for lunch, but as it was in a box, I could easily take it with me.

Our next stop was Target, just across the road, but as this is America, you have it drive around the car park, and across the road.  

I love this store! It's huge, it's got everything. It's like Walmart, but a better supermarket. It has always seemed to be cleaner, and have nicer products than Walmart. They have a vast range of toiletries, they've got electrical goods, their clothes are good and reasonable prices. 

We also enjoyed the stationery department before heading to check out. 

After such a long time in Target, we were all a bit tired, so we went home. 

Not wanting to waste a minute, and as Mike had said he'd kept the swimming pool open especially for us coming to visit, I decided it was time we made use of it. We'd intentionally brought swimwear, so it didn't take much for us both to get ready and try to get in the pool. 

The water felt cool. But underneath it was a bit warmer. There had been temperatures of 100 degrees F 2 days earlier, but the temperature had dropped to somewhere in the 80's. 

We eventually managed to get in, swimming for a short while. It gets easier to be in, once you get used to it. 

Afterwards, we sat in the sunshine, with a magazine, and for the first time on this trip, we had 5 minutes to rest, with no where to be rushing to, nothing calling us to hurry up. What we were doing, was exactly the activity we had planned. A little in shine and sunbathing. Back home it's turning Autumnal pretty quickly, so this is our last sniff of the summer.

Soon, Mike came to bring us some more activities. First up as part of the American experience, was the sit on law mower.

I've done this before, and it's good fun. Imagine having to mow 1/4 acre, it's quite a lot of lawn, so the truck is very useful. 

It makes for some good pictures too! 

Next up in the all American experience, a trip to the liquor store. I've been trying since my last trip to Milwaukee 2 years ago to obtain the gin from Great Lakes Distillery. 

It's called Rehorst, after the owner of the company.

It seems from the updates I see on their Facebook page, that they have come a long way since I visited 2 years ago. But unfortunately, I can't find a distributor that can ship to the UK. They can't ship to a delivery address in Pennsylvania. Liquor in Pennsylvania is state controlled. So I guess I'll have to plan a trip back to the Mid West to get my gin. But in the mean time, we visited a store to explore, and buy some beer. Plus, as we were out of luck on the gin I wanted, we bought some American gin anyway. Both of us bought a different one for a gift.  

On the way home we stopped to pick up pizza, and they were huge!!