Life and Death in the Midwest

Well, yesterday was a busy day. I woke up early to get on a plane to Chicago. The flight was rather non eventful, we even arrived about 30 minutes early. My sisters flight was right on time. We got all of our bags, laptops, musical instruments, baby stuff etc and took the bus to the Avis rental center. We got a Chevy Impala (why the hell do they put the ignition there?!?!?) and got on our way to Peru. Once we got off of I-55 and onto I-80 we found a Wendy's for lunch (it was after 3:00 EDT) and used the drive thru, since Michael was STILL sleeping and Beth didn't want to wake him. Around 3:00pm CDT we found the hotel and checked in. Beth wanted to give Michael a chance to stretch out, since he had been in his car seat all day, before we called Uncle Hank and his clan. I tool the time to get my laptop working and Skype home.

After about an hour, Beth called Hank, Kim and Mavis and it was decided that we would all meet for dinner around 5:15, just 3 hours after we ate lunch. To make things worse, they wanted to eat McDonalds. So, we got our stuff together and worked our way over to Spring Valley. Hank looks the same, just a little grayer. Mavis and Kim both look much older, but then again I haven't seen them in 27 years. Kim has three beautiful daughters aged 13, 15 and 21 I believe. We had a nice chat all about our lives and of course our big trip with Grandma in the van. We all remembered a few things that some of us had forgotten and had a great time. I'm sure the employees were wondering if we were ever going to leave!

Before we got back into our cars we found out how much bitterness still existed between Kim and Hank, due mostly to the fact that Kim's daughters are bi-racial. It' sad to see such hurt in people's eyes at a time like this, but this is nothing new for them. It has been this way for as long as I can remember.

After getting back to the hotel, Beth and Michael went to bed around 8:00pm CDT and I decided to see if I could find somewhere to go. On the way into the hotel, we saw two Mexican restaurants. One was across the parking lot from the hotel and the other was called "Mi Margarita". I figured one of them had to have a bar, so I walked over the closer one first and peered into the windows. No bar there. Then I went back to the front desk and asked them what bars were in the area. They said "Well, there's Appleby's or the SuperBowl" which was a bowling alley across the street. I decided to hop in my car and drive the short distance to Appleby's. It was very busy, but of course, not much going on at the bar. So, I remarked to the barmaid how bizarre it was that there weren't any other bars around here. She told me about a local place (Lou's LaGrotta) that she used to work at that was more down in the town. Now THAT was the place to be! Mugs of Sam Adams for $2!!! I had 2 or 3 beers, listened to the locals talk about their lives etc and then headed back to the motel room. After a quick stop at the Steak and Shake (yup, time for one more burger!) I settled into my room for the night around 10:15pm CDT.

Today, will be another busy day and I'll try to write about that tonight....


Till next time,