5.8.06
A couple of weeks ago... I was in Chicago (well, Crystal Lake) for a family reunion. The reunion was a long weekend, but I took a couple of extra days for myself because, well, the reunion was just for a weekend. Hagar's I Can't Drive 55 is on XM49 (Big Tracks) right now. Appropriate because, well, I can't. (As a side-note, is this song at all appropriate for Back to the Future 2? It seems to me that the only connection to the ass-backward alternate reality is the up-tempo beat to show that they're kinda badass or something...but I digress). After barely making it out of Washington a couple of Wednesday nights ago (there's a noise restriction; if you're not off the ground by 10pm at National, you ain't leaving until the next morning), I get to O'Hare late, and go through an ordeal at the Avis counter. I made the nice lady processing my order laugh (by telling the tale of the noise restriction...she couldn't imagine O'Hare shutting down for such a thing) and managed getting a free upgrade to a Cadillac CTS. Not a bad car (although, shall we say, radically different than my Expedition). Actually a very good car. And one which I drove. A lot (more than 1000km over 5 days). Well, the drive from the airport to the hotel had one problem: I didn't have the proper change for the tolls, and the booth is unattended, but they had a phone number on the booth for situations like mine. Suffice it to say that I paid more to comply than I did for the toll. *Sigh* But other than that, I explored: Northern Illinois & southern Wisconsin on Thursday (to Janesville via Rockford and back via a more direct route), Chicago! on Friday, with family from Friday to Sunday in Crystal Lake, but (Mom, Lindy, Buck &) I got the guided tour of Joliet from Uncle Bill on Saturday. Sunday I drove to O'Hare (dropped Lindy at the airport for her flight & Mom and Buck at the Enterprise counter for another car...theirs broke down). Then I drove to Madison, via Milwaukee. Saw the state Capitol (where the UW track club, or somesuch, was running to raise funds for the year). Saw Lake Monona (via Monona Terrace, I think it was called). The painted cows were different. Not quite something you'd see anywhere in the Commonwealth. Not even in the Great Valley. Then I took a more direct route back, rather than the interstate. Best 5 days I've had in at least a decade. No shit. Absolutely priceless. When I drove back to the airport I had no idea my father was in Chicago on that Monday when I flew home, but he was. And he had planned to catch the same flight that I did...so when I hear "What are you doing here?" behind my newspaper, I was, shall we say, surprised. "Same thing you are, I imagine: trying to get home".
It's A Small World After All: There must be a God and he must be trying to teach me a lesson about connectedness, because I can't write all of these off as coincidence:
- One high school classmate is a regular customer of mine
- Another classmate from high school (to whom I was attracted, as a side note, not that it's actually relevant) pulled up to a gas pump the same time I did & we shared that few minutes.
- The aforementioned flight from Chicago to Washington.
- The fact that both Grampa & his brother (the aforementioned Uncle Bill) knew which room I was in at the hotel (well, that's more likely the fact that we were in the same hotel and the clerks had no problem giving the information out)
- One of my dad's buddies from the Navy, I recently discovered, is a customer.
Zuletzt: Hockey season is right around the corner. As a side note, it was good to see a Canadian team make it to the final, but I wish Edmonton had won. Just like I wish Calgary had beaten Tampa Bay in '04. And how is it that the Caps let Homegrown (Jeff Halpern) get away?
Enough for now,
R.
P.S. I'm ready for another vacation right now!
