Chicago

Everyone in Chicago is so friendly; it’s just such a friendly city. This is what Amber keeps telling me all morning over coffee. I think she misspoke slightly. Certain folks in Chicago are super friendly ... though I’m not sure they are all there. Some of them definitely are. The first lady we encountered however may just have had a few loose screws up top. Audrey offered to show us around seeing as Amber had an interview that afternoon, which she nailed by the way....WAY TO GO AMBER!! Anyhow, as we are walking to the metro, we encounter a woman out on what seemed to be her daily walk around the neighborhood. She was clad in a pink walking outfit and matching sneaks...oh and the socks, I can’t forget the socks. They were just plain white socks, like the non-athletic kind, but she had them pulled all the way up as if they were the old-school 70’s tube socks. Out of nowhere, she begins talking about random stuff. She was all over the place, to most of which we were all 3 just nodding and smiling. But in the end, what I got out of it was that God was bringing a big storm (aka the rapture) because people are doing evil things like shooting planes out of the sky and stuff. Oh and the neighborhood had changed a lot and she used to live in San Antonio where they had roaches the size of her hand. Friendly? Eh...maybe....but I’m voting a lil more on the crazy.

We spent the day roaming around doing the typical tourist thing. We walked all around stopping at the typical attractions, like the bean. The bean I don’t quite get. Is is cool? Sure...I guess? I just don’t quite understand why it is such a big attraction. It’s just a large metal structure in the shape of a bean ... or a kidney. I think I may start calling it the kidney....I think that’s a tad more fitting. Like “Hey have you ever seen that giant metal kidney in Chicago?” I would probably be more intrigued by that line than just a bean. 

Lake Michigan, however, is beautiful ... and huge. It’s like a freakin’ ocean. But I can understand now as to how people could really live in such a city as Chicago. It’s nice and all but pretty standard in my opinion in regards to large cities ... but that lake makes it superior to many....I’m just sayin’.

One thing that I am quite jealous of Chicagoans is their access to different beers. Deschutes (which is out of Oregon in case you’re not cool enough to know where that is) is available in Chicago. Oh what I would do to have access to Deschutes beer on a daily basis. It is most definitely one of my favorite breweries in the country. And now Audrey and Amber can enjoy it whenever they please ... um can you say jelly?? On the other hand, Chicago proved that day to be just as hot as North Carolina, and their winters are way more harsh ... so perhaps that’s the trade off.

The following morning, we awoke, had our coffee, gathered our things, and bid them fair-well. We had a long trail ahead of us. Jesse’s friend, Brad, had a spot for us in Rapid City, South Dakota ... so we had a ways to travel ... but just like 950 miles....that’s only like 14 hours right?? No problem ... or so we thought.

#WestwardHo

And we’re off. With our packs ready, the Subaru packed to about the brim, and enough munchie food to keep Jesse content most of the drive to Chicago, we set off on the adventure. Chicago’s drive, can I just say, is longer than it seems like it should be. Google Maps claims that it is only 10 hours; however, it seemed to be the longest 10 hours ever.  Actually no it was 10 hours ... we just didn’t know at the time what 10 hours was like I suppose. We would realize long drives the next day en route to South Dakota. 

What can I say about driving through a bunch of states at a fairly rapid speed? Oh! First the tunnels. I-77 in Virginia is a fan of some tunnels cutting right through mountains. And they are awesome. They remind me of being a kid traveling to Jersey for the summer and crossing the Chesapeake Bay via tunnel. We used to try to hold our breath the entire way, which never happened because that tunnel takes like 5 minutes to drive through and what 8 year old do you know that can hold their breath for 5 minutes? I didn’t try to hold my breath this time...that shall be reserved solely for the Chesapeake. 

Next up West Virginia ... I know the Wild and the Wonderful ... they have these travel plazas which are kind of confusing. Well the plaza itself is not confusing; they are actually quite convenient. But there are multiples of them in the Wild and Wonderful state and they all are EXACTLY the same. So you feel like you’ve visited that exact travel plaza before, but in turn you actually probably just stopped at another one on some random road trip through the night in your early 20s (or really I should be saying ‘I’ not you...I took these random trips; perhaps you did too, but I don’t know these things). Oh and they are a hub for every stereotypical person you could have in West Virginia. You’ve got the random goth girl with skull/cross tattoos and gauges working the register at the Starbucks; then the teeny-bopper possibly high school cheerleader fixing your coffees; the dread-head festi-friend working at S’barro; and then a whole bunch of random folks that make you feel like you're perhaps in a Wal-Mart ... that is until you remind yourself that you are not, you are just in a West Virginian Travel Plaza.

Upon surviving the West Virginia Travel Plaza, we head west ... #westwardho! ... that is to Kentucky. Now I love Kentucky ... I really do! It’s the home of bourbon and bluegrass .... I mean what is NOT to love!!?? However, the back road was fun for about the first 30 - 40 miles; the other 40 - 50 mile got old real fast .... we were super happy that we fueled up right before that road because running out of gas out there would have been treacherous. I didn’t think that I would be so happy to see Ohio, but I so was. Ohio was a blink ... we drove through Cincinnati and pretty much that was it ... and onto Indiana. Indiana was full of corn. I have never seen corn fields like they have in Indiana. Oh, and turbines ... ... lots and lots of wind farms, which made my soul real happy. I think had it not been for the turbines, I would have been much less content with the state of Indiana.

By the time we reached Chicago, it was late. We had trekked about 1,000 miles, crossed into a new time zone, and passed through enough states to make us both ready to crash out. And luckily, Amber and Audrey had a sweet spot with a very comfy air mattress and a couch that was actually big enough for Jess, which made us both super happy.