Alright!
Again, no good excuse for why it's been a while, so I'll just jump right in. Well, that's not entirely true. As I write this I have no internet, so I'll have to post it tomorrow when I do, but other than that, I've just been super busy and haven't had a chance to slow down! So let me tell you about it.
So Sunday night I spent in Detroit at my cousin's house. We had originally intended to check out the jazz festival that was that weekend, but when we got home from camping we were entirely too tired. I slept like a rock that night in their basement & in the morning, my cousin & I and her daughter went to this cute little coffee shop called Morning Glory (clever, eh?) for a pre-drive pick-me-up. I got one tasty Americano and Julia polished off her strawberry smoothy like a 2 year old champ. And then it was time to go. But not before I quickly stopped in Starbucks for cup of coffee #2. (The real reason I went to Sbux was to buy a mug that said “Detroit” on it, but then I got sidetracked and ordered another cup of coffee... sue me!)
And I was off! Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot about the drive because it's been a few days, but I do remember one thing: CONSTRUCTION EVERYWHERE. Literally all of the places I could possibly ever want to go were piled sky high with orange construction barrels. Each little site had its own sign reading: “Injure/Kill a worker $7,500 + 14 years”. How cheerful. But here's the catch, I didn't see ONE worker in these sites. No one to injure & get me my 14 years in prison. Nope, just orange cones and blocked off lanes and backed up traffic. And then I remember that Monday is a holiday. So now we just get the traffic backup without the pleasure of any work being done. Hooray! And honestly, it wasn't that bad. And then it got terrible. I was stuck in this line of tremendously slowly moving cars and when we finally got to where it had bottle necked, like any respectable traffic jam you couldn't actually tell what the problem was!
So now I'm flustered. And I have to be in Chicago by 4pm to pick Brie up at the airport. And the nearer I get to Chicago, the more it costs me to drive in both tolls and patience. So I get in to Chicago, and I'm coming in from the south and of course, I'm stuck in semi-rush hour traffic at 4pm. And I'm headed straight into the heart of the city, to one of the biggest airports in the US. Great. And there's construction, and tolls, and traffic everywhere, and we're going slow, but not quite as slow as I thought we'd be going. Miraculously, I make it to O'Hare. And then my GPS becomes useless. Matilda knows how to get me to the basic region of businesses or airports, but once I'm there, her knowledge of parking lots and anything that's not an actual road is next to nothing. So I start to circle the airport in those fantastic loops that airports have for people like me. All the while Brie's plane is slightly late, and she's getting her baggage, I finally find a place to park, and almost as if by fate or a miracle or some divine grace, we end up at the same place, at the same time. Thank you, God!
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| me & brie |
And it's lovely. We're both flustered, she from flying, and me from traffic, but we get everything packed in to my car, and we're back out to fight Chicago's traffic. Except this time, it's not that bad! What? Matilda must know something that I don't know. We shot out of Chicago, going south now, almost as if there wasn't traffic. We make it to our destination rather earlier than we had anticipated, and as our host wasn't actually there yet (she was still on her way home from work), we drove around looking for a Target. I was out of some essentials, so it was a good excuse to go shopping. Then we stopped at Panera Bread for dinner. Brie had never been. I was excited because I hadn't been to a Panera Bread in a couple years. And it was awesome. Except.... they were out of almost everything! Panera Bread's crowning glory is their foccacia bread and they were out! Of that, and a handful of other breads. I really wanted to be angry because I was so tired, but having worked in a restaurant, I had to pull out my sympathy. It sucks when you run out of stuff, and there's honestly nothing you can do it about it sometimes. Bummer.
After dinner, we headed to our hosts' house. In Chicago, we were staying with the sister (and her husband & kids) of one of our good friends from high school. Brie & I had both only met Rachel once or twice so it was a bit strange at first, but she and her husband were both extremely welcoming, friendly and hospitable to the both of us. And their kids were super cute. It really is incredible how hospitable people can be & are. I love it. And I'm thankful beyond measure for it. Especially to house both of us out of the blue for 2 nights. Seriously. Its brilliant.
Extremely tired from our day, Brie & I hit the sack early. Tuesday morning, we got up, took showers, got some oatmeal and (with the help of our host) walked to the train station which was only about 2 blocks away. This train would take us straight into the heart of Chicago's downtown, to their Millennium Park (Chicago's version of Central Park). So we walk to the train station, and we got to the little kiosk to buy our tickets and all three of the machines were out of order! Being a small station, there was no attendant to help us out. Looks like we'd be buying tickets on the train and therefore incurring a surcharge! Well that sucks. So we sit there to wait for the train. It comes on time, we get on, sit on the top (double-decker trains are awesome), and head off to Chicago. When the conductor comes buy asking for our tickets, I told him about the broken machines. He was nice enough to waive the surcharge so we got our tickets for a bit cheaper than we expected. Yay! An hour later, we were in Chicago.
Train stations always disorient me. I can usually find my way around them with little difficulty. I may look like a lost tourist, but I can usually find my way if you give me enough time. What I am not good at though, is figuring out which direction we're headed. New Mexicans are spoiled. We always know which was is East because of the mountains. No other city has that! So we get to the street from the train station, and we immediately start walking the wrong way. But only for about a block. One of the awesome things I've discovered about having an iPhone is that if you've got service, its pretty hard to get lost. My little blue dot on my gps showed me going the wrong way, so we turned around and were set straight.
The plan for the day was simple: walk around & explore. There were only 3 things that we desperately wanted to do: visit Navy Pier, see the Sears Tower, and maybe catch a Second City performance. So first stop was Millennium Park on the way to Navy Pier. The park is beautiful. We didn't explore quite as much as we probably should have, but we found 2 very cool things in the park. The first is that fantastic silver bean-looking thing in the middle of the park. We took pictures. The thing is huge! And people stare at it wondering what on earth its supposed to be but taking pictures because they don't really care what it's supposed to be as long as it looks cool. Then we turn around and behind us is this massive outdoor amphitheater. Also gorgeous!
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| the bean thing |
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| our reflection in the bean thing! |
So we keep walking east, trying to get to Navy Pier & we start to walk along the harbor. There were tons of boats all sitting in Lake Michigan bobbing to and fro slightly from the breeze (which was quickly becoming wind). Despite seeing a lot of water so far on this trip, it still fascinates me. So we walked along the harbor, thinking that we'd soon be running into the pier, but we completely forgot about the little river that runs off of the lake into Chicago which we still had to cross. To cross this river took us about 30 minutes out of our way. Eventually, we made it to the pier.
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| boats |
Navy Pier, as my uncle put it, has nothing to do with the navy. He's right. It's an enormous pier with a little bit of everything on it. You can take cruises off of the pier. There are several restaurants, shops, kiosks and the like interspersed between a sort of gallery, a Children's museum, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and a small amusement park. So Brie & I walked around and looked at everything. We walked all the way down the pier to the edge on the side with all the shops and then made the mistake of walking all the way back on the other side, which is just the backs of all the shops. Oops. And then we decided to eat some food & ride the ferris wheel. It gives you a lovely view of downtown Chicago. Tickets purchased, we hop on and we notice that there's a sign which informs us that it's illegal in the state of Illinois to drop anything off of the ferris wheel. Near the top, you can really start to feel the wind of The Windy City. Not so much that the ferris wheel would shake or anything, but enough that the wind caught the bag of Brie's souvenir and took it straight out of our little compartment! Oh no! Inadvertently we had broken Illinois state law & lost the only souvenir Brie had purchased so far! And as we were at the top, we still had half of the (very slow) ride to go. We get down to the bottom and we see an official looking dude holding a little plastic bag, oddly similar to the one that fell out from our compartment, asking the people who were in the cart in front of us some rather seriously looking questions. Thinking that maybe it was better not to run the risk of arrest & ask if that little bag was what we thought & hoped it was, we booked it out of there, never to see that souvenir again. Sad day.
To finish off Navy Pier, Brie & I decided to try some Fried Dough. And it's exactly what it sounds like. Its dough, that they fry, and the douse in sugar, gelatto, caramel sauce, apple topping, and who knows what else. It was fabulous! And so filling, and so incredibly sugary and sweet. It was like Americanized sopapillas. And then we walked off those calories by walking all the way over to the Sears Tower. Walking through Downtown Chicago to get there was pretty cool. Tons of cool buildings, a statue of Marilyn Monroe, the “L” Train, we somehow ended up in the theatre district which put me just a little closer to heaven, and then we finally saw it. Both of us were wondering if it'd be worth the walk to go to this building but its a monstrosity. And you can go to the top of it. So we did.
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| fried dough |
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| marilyn monroe |
$17 and 103 floors later, we were standing on top of the Sears Tower overlooking ALL of Chicago. The view was breathtaking. Being from a small city in the desert, two things fascinate me: tons of big buildings and water. And Chicago has both! So we took upwards of a billion pictures, especially on this glass ledge that you can walk out on to and literally be standing OVER the city (its a little trippy). So if you're wondering, the Sears Tower (which btw, is technically now named “Willis Tower”) is totally worth the walk & the admission fee. Go see it if you haven't already.
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| sears tower (willis tower) |
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| the view |
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| im standing in mid air |
And then we walked some more. But this time, just a couple blocks to the L. It was time to find out if we could get tickets to the Second City. What is the Second City, you ask? Well I'll tell you! It's an improv comedy club that is nationally recognized and has turned out the likes of comics such as Steve Carrel, Tina Fey, Jim Belushi, Eugene Levy, Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and the list goes on and on and on and on. I've seen them once before. Their touring show came to Albuquerque a while back and I was very eager to see them again. Brie consented to come along and so we figured we'd take the L up there because we were probably a good 2 or 3 miles away and we'd already walked enough for the week. So we got a little help figuring out where we were going & how we were going to get there and hopped on the train. Which took us to Old Town Chicago. 4 blocks away was the theatre. Its just a tiny little thing, and we got tickets no problem.
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| <3 |
And I'm THRILLED that we did. The show was awesome. Absolutely one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And we had great seats! 2nd row, perfect view of the stage. It was, as far as I was concerned, perfect. Except for one, teeny, tiny thing. The show is actually scripted sketches in 2 acts, but its born out of their improv. So after the second act, they informed us that they were going to do a completely improvised 3rd act if people wanted to stick around. I thought it was a no brainer to stay, but then we realized that if we stayed, we'd miss the 2nd to last train back to the house we were staying at, and the last train was nearly 2 hours after that... at 1 am. So we'd be stuck in the train station for 2 hours, and we wouldn't get back to the house until 2 am and then we had an 8 hour drive the next day. So, rather reluctantly, we had to leave the Second City, hop back on the L and then take the train back south to the house. And that was the day... almost.
Just as we're getting off of our last train, it's just after midnight, we're both exhausted, we get off of the train, the doors close, and all of a sudden, Brie turns around and says, “Oh no! I left my camera in there!” And then the train speeds off. Crap. Now what do we do? We pick up the service phone, report the loss, and they tell us that if they find it, they'll call us. But it was the last train, so we were a little hopeful, despite it all. Our host very very kindly picked us up from the train station, and minutes after we got back, it was beditme. In the morning, we packed up, had some more oatmeal, and headed out.
To Omaha! What a tremendously boring drive! You see, we basically drove all the way across Illinois, and then we drove ALL the way across Iowa. And you know what we saw? Corn. And then we saw a semi and some clouds, and then some more corn. And then after that, a coupe hills, and more corn. And then after that. Corn again! Fields and fields and fields of corn. Corn corn corn. Everywhere! All in all, the drive was a bit boring, but it was fun having another person in the car! That's new. It'll take a bit of getting used to! So we listened to Harry Potter on tape, looked at the corn, and continued on our drive making very good time to Omaha.
And in Omaha we were staying with a friend of a friend who Brie had met a few times and who I had taken a class with at UNM. Crazy, right? Like I said, people are hospitable! We found our way to Rachel & Brandon's apartment and she let us in. Brie and I were exhausted so we were a bit boring for the night. We helped making some potatoes for dinner, had a discussion about who Satan is (who knew that most of what we thought we knew may or may not be speculation.... hmmm... maybe I'll think more about that later), and a bit of talking and dinner, Brie and I did the dishes. I'm starting to lear that there's not a whole lot I can do for the people that I stay with. BUT, I can help them do the dishes. Why? Because it takes little to no skill to wash dishes and even less skill to dry them. Also, if you wash, you don't have to know where these dishes go. You just have to wash them. It's awesome.
That night, Brie & I went to Wal Mart to get her a new camera, get some gas in my car for the morning, and then again, it was time to sleep. The next day we'd be driving to Denver, making it a whopping 1000 miles that we would drive in 2 days.
And we were back on the road by 8am the next morning. Starbucks in hand, we were ready for another 8 hour drive. We listened to more Harry Potter on tape, finishing Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter on tape is awesome, btw, if you are wondering. Its tremendously entertaining!) And across Nebraska there is tons more (yep, you guessed it!) CORN! Fields upon glorious fields of corn. It is, afterall, the Cornhusker State according to the rather ugly souvenir mug I purchased at this sketchtastic little gas station in the middle of no where.
300 miles later, there we were in Colorado. Being in Colorado was really really strange. As soon as you crossed the border between Nebraska and Colorado, it was like magic, all the corn disappeared. And it started to look oddly like home. It's very strange to be driving in Colorado now, because we're so very close to home, but we're going right past it. After our stay in Denver, we're off to Los Angles! But Denver first!
Brie & I are staying in Denver with one of our good friends from high school (apparently I have a few of those...). The drive to Denver went surprisingly quick. And I like Denver. Its got a big city feel, but without being too terribly big and scary. The west just feels way more welcoming to me. Maybe its because I'm from this side of the country, but its just a much more relaxed environment. As much as I like the big tall buildings, I like the big tall mountains more. They're more comforting, somehow.
But the long and short of it is that we made it to Denver. Dani's husband is in the Air Force & they live on base, so we had to wait for her at visitor parking. When she got there, we got our little passes & they took absolutely horrendous photos of us for identification. Seriously, in mine, I look like a very fat linebacker. Its upsetting.
And now we're in Denver. This blog is already WAY too long so I'm going to tell you about the rest in the next one. I'm so sorry it's taken me ever so long to write. But thanks again for reading, and with any luck, I'll be blogging more frequently from now on. I'm getting blog fatigue! But it shan't get me down!! Huzzah!
TALLY:
miles driven: <6,000 (woah, nelly!)
time spent in my car: 96 hours (4 FRIGGIN DAYS)
cities visited: 28
cities slept in: 15
states driven in/through: 23
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