Roadtrip 2012: Hot Hot Hot

After First-born, Longboarder, and I slept and ate and slept some more, we were once again functional human beings. We lounged about at Grandma’s. Lounged about at Aunt P’s. We drove around looking for thrift shops and bored poor Longboarder to death. And went down to Wellington Colorado for their July 4th festivities and saw the largest mule EVER!!

I picked up a rental car and headed out on the next installment of the road trip on Thursday. I drove 15 hours to Naperville Illinois to see my internet besties, Evil, Noir, and Trek (as in Trekie).

Why do you hate me, Nebraska? It seemed like the entire state of Nebraska is under road construction. Seriously, even 10 miles was yet another construction zone. Took forever to get out of that state!

Typical view of Nebraska: Corn!

Iowa was pretty, at least the first 90 miles. The other 200 miles, I have no idea. The sun set over Iowa. It was a blood moon (red), but then three hours later it was white. Iowa reminds me of Denmark. I can see why all the Dane expats came here! They are still here. If I remember my family history right, my Danish immigrant great grandfather first settled in Iowa before setting roots in Wyoming. I stopped for the night in Davenport Iowa. And at 11:30pm central time it was still 94 degrees with 88% humidity. Talk about UGH!

Iowa sunset

and Iowa windmills!

I listened to the audiobook Venetia by Georgette Heyer. And then I started singing loudly along with music the last 3 hours. It is nice to be alone in the car sometimes. I notice that I also talk to myself and say random comments when I see interesting road signs or for that matter, anything.

I see this, I just have to say "bi-gosh"!

Friday, I finished the journey to Illinois. I crossed the Mississippi. I took a moment, it is the farthest I have ever driven east. I made it to Naperville by 11:30am Friday.

Illinois has corn too

It was now time to be total dorks and catch up. I hadn’t seen Evil, Trek, and Noir for four years. We had met online in a fan forum back in 2007. Evil and I flew out to New York in 2008 to meet Noir face to face for the first time and go to NY Comic Con. We instantly recognised each other. This time we met a fellow fan forum friend FG for the first time. We all went out to dinner Friday night. Saturday we spent in downtown Chicago and did tourist stuff (double decker bus, water taxi, Navy Pier, Joffrey Ballet, Lake Michigan, the L). The architecture is amazing! Sunday we went to a Hindu temple. Gorgeous building! Understood nothing, but interesting. Had lunch and then it was time to take Noir to the airport. I leave for the next installment Monday morning to Minnesota.

The time spent with the internet besties was great! We laughed our asses off! We always do when we get together. We all decided that it is time for them to visit me next time! A weekend isn’t long enough for us either, need more time. It went by so fast and felt like we didn’t really get a chance to just hang out and chat. Still, won’t pass up an opportunity, however short to see these guys. I regret missing the trip they did to Rome, Italy back in 2010. I just couldn’t swing it. Love my internet hotards!

FG, me, Evil, and Trek

Noir and me

Stay tuned for next time where I visit the big ball of twine.... no really!

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