Anniversary, pt. 2: Sheridan Road, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Google Maps
We chose Wisconsin because we thought the travel would be easy. It wasn’t. According to Google Maps, the House on the Rock – our final and most remote tour stop – lay less than five hours from South Bend. And yet our return took us nearly eight hours. Our rests were brief; our detours were minor; traffic in Chicago was relatively painless. Google just got it wrong.
Around 12:00 last night, we reached home and joyfully were reunited with Ziva and Jasper.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The trip to Wisconsin was lengthy by design. In Illinois we kept to the Sheridan Road, hugging the lake. I wanted to see the mansions in Evanston, Kenilworth, and other obscenely rich towns. Then we drove through some merely well-off towns; through the grimy naval town of North Chicago; through Waukegan, where I’d lived as a three-and-four-year-old; and through Zion, where I’d spent the third grade. I showed Karin my old haunts (the fast food restaurants). We stopped at my old church, which now seemed very small, and I pointed out all my acquaintances in the photos on the missions bulletin board. We then went downstairs and interrupted a baby shower. I said hello to the pastor’s wife, who made me greet her husband on the phone.
Then it was north through dismal Kenosha and west to Milwaukee, where our goal was to eat some famous bratwurst. The bratwurst was so delicious and the pretzel so enormous, we’ll probably never eat at that place again (the food was felt well into the night).
The music inside the bratwurst pub was very loud. This distressed Karin, who’d never been inside any kind of pub. (She also was distressed when one drunk young man swung around and serenaded me with “Call Me Maybe.”) Traffic downtown in Milwaukee was bad. Parking was expensive. We called it a night and settled into our Waukesha Super 8. The TV was showing a marathon of Law and Order (the version with Lenny Briscoe and Jack McCoy).
Next entry: Madison, etc.
Around 12:00 last night, we reached home and joyfully were reunited with Ziva and Jasper.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The trip to Wisconsin was lengthy by design. In Illinois we kept to the Sheridan Road, hugging the lake. I wanted to see the mansions in Evanston, Kenilworth, and other obscenely rich towns. Then we drove through some merely well-off towns; through the grimy naval town of North Chicago; through Waukegan, where I’d lived as a three-and-four-year-old; and through Zion, where I’d spent the third grade. I showed Karin my old haunts (the fast food restaurants). We stopped at my old church, which now seemed very small, and I pointed out all my acquaintances in the photos on the missions bulletin board. We then went downstairs and interrupted a baby shower. I said hello to the pastor’s wife, who made me greet her husband on the phone.
Then it was north through dismal Kenosha and west to Milwaukee, where our goal was to eat some famous bratwurst. The bratwurst was so delicious and the pretzel so enormous, we’ll probably never eat at that place again (the food was felt well into the night).
The music inside the bratwurst pub was very loud. This distressed Karin, who’d never been inside any kind of pub. (She also was distressed when one drunk young man swung around and serenaded me with “Call Me Maybe.”) Traffic downtown in Milwaukee was bad. Parking was expensive. We called it a night and settled into our Waukesha Super 8. The TV was showing a marathon of Law and Order (the version with Lenny Briscoe and Jack McCoy).
Next entry: Madison, etc.