(no subject)

Elyse and I drove to Chicago yesterday to take Bud to her new owner. It was a fairly uneventful trip. I packed a bunch of sandwiches, a few small bottles of milk, some water and several CDs and we were on our way. We got a little bit lost in Chicago, but not bad. I'm very good at finding my way around. I would be even better if the Chicago Parks District would label their parks better. We were supposed to meet at the fountain that they show in the beginning credits of Married With Children. That's in Grant Park. I believe we were parked in front of Grant Park, but that we were one block north of the fountain. No big deal. The fountain wasn't running anyway. The new owner and her friend found us fairly easily and we made the exchange. Elyse was saying goodbye to Bud when a homeless man came over and started talking to us. He was very polite, but we didn't really want him there because we were in the middle of having a moment and he disturbed it. I gave him the change in my pocket (24 cents) and he went away. It was extremely cold and windy, so we didn't get to hang out and chat like I had hoped. So we all got into our respective cars and went home. I-90 and I-94 are the same road going out of Chicago, but somewhere along the line I-90 splits off and I didn't see where. So I drove on I-94 for 20 minutes in the wrong direction. So we tried to take 130th street across to I-90. It almost worked, but we missed a road and got lost in Gary, IN. I'd heard bad things about Gary and it was sort of nice to have that corroborated, but that was the only nice part. Gary, Indiana is the most awful city I have ever seen.

Elyse and I listened to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone most of the way home. But Elyse said it was putting her to sleep (I'm glad she spoke up because I was getting sleepy, too), so we started going through CDs. She'd go through my CDs and just grab one at random and I'd play all the good songs on it and she'd pick another. It was kind of fun. Plus, she got a good introduction to They Might Be Giants. I stopped at rest station off of I-90 in South Bend to gas up. They have a South Bend Chocolate Company kiosk in there, so I bought us 1/4 pound of turtle fudge, 1/4 pound of english toffee, and two giant pecan clusters. The fudge deserves a solid "meh," but the toffee and pecan clusters were awesome. Well worth the money.

Last night it occurred to me how cool it was that I live within driving distance of several major U.S. cities. Chicago and home again in one day...that's pretty neat. When I lived in Washington, the only city I could drive to and back again in one day was Spokane, and that wasn't really something to write home about.

I'd like to go back and visit Chicago again. It seems like a real neat town.