September 27-28.
Well we're back at our home in Grand Rapids. The drive to Huntley, Illinois was smooth and largely devoid of traffic snarls although there was the occasional slowdown between the Wisconsin Dells and Madison, Wisconsin.
Anyway, after about 6 hours on the road we got to our hotel, checked in and appreciated a quiet bed to take a short nap before dinner.
We met up with Greg and Joyce for pizza at Lou Malnati's in Lakewood. A pizza staple of the Chicagoland area for decades, Lou Malnati's has a fun and funky vibe inside and the pizza along with the services was very good indeed.
The four of us spent a couple of hours catching up; we hadn't seen each other since earlier last year when Greg was in the hospital after a fall off a ladder at home. We shared warm and lively conversation as always, littered with plenty of laughs.
After a round of hugs and good-byes we headed back to the hotel for the night.
Monday morning we were took our time over coffee and a light breakfast in our room before packing up and heading out. We wanted to give the morning commuter traffic plenty of time to thin out before hitting the road around Chicago.
It was a relatively pain free four-hour drive home. Although (as always) the traffic along I-80/90 through south Chicago and northern Indiana was heavy it moved along, and for that we were grateful. And the roads, which were in various states of reconstruction here and there, were familiar.
The trip was short but oh so very sweet. Yes, we ended up spending some 35 hours in the car covering more than 1,900 miles on roads of varying quality behind drivers of varying intelligence. But two things of note stand out: first we got to experience truly remarkable parts of our country we had never seen before, learning one or two things in the bargain while also catching some spectacular glimpses of the coming autumn colors; second, we got to spend quality time with family. You can't ask for much more than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment