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Arrived Safely...
Feb. 28th, 2008 08:58 amWe're here in lovely Valpariaso after a rather long, harrowing trip. It was long becaus somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin our squeaky-but-supposed-to-be-safe-to-drive-on wheel started making a new, more disturbing scraping sound. We stopped in Black River Falls to use the bathroom at the McDonalds (what? They're always pretty clean!) and got directions to a nearby car dealership that also serviced cars. They also told us it was probably safe to drive on, but that made tension high with every turn of the wheel.
Shawn, who is always a nervous traveler, got sick. We stopped twice a few miles down the road for her to use the wayside facilities. Poor baby. But, being the Boy Scout of packing that she is, we had all sorts of medicinal relief for her in the trunk so she was able to settle her stomach after a few moments.
Then, just outside of Joliet, Illinois, we hit traffic. We crawled along at a snail's pace (about a mile per hour) for nearly an hour. No apparent cause for the slow down that I could determine -- no accident or other obvious road construction -- my only thought was that it was four o'clock and everyone just looked at their watches and said, "time for rush hour!" and promptly hit the breaks.
So, even though we left at 8:00 am, we didn't get into Valparaiso until nearly 5:30 pm. We dropped our stuff in the door, and headed over to the nursing home to visit Shawn's dad. I have to say I was expecting him to look much worse than he did. We actually had a very pleasant visit, and then we headed off to dinner and home to crash.
This morning we're off to see him again. Shawn will probably spend the day hanging out, and Mason and I will explore the town -- mostly to stay out from under foot. Grandpa loves seeing him, of course, but he his a squirrely four year old.
Oh... and wireless is working. Hooray!
Shawn, who is always a nervous traveler, got sick. We stopped twice a few miles down the road for her to use the wayside facilities. Poor baby. But, being the Boy Scout of packing that she is, we had all sorts of medicinal relief for her in the trunk so she was able to settle her stomach after a few moments.
Then, just outside of Joliet, Illinois, we hit traffic. We crawled along at a snail's pace (about a mile per hour) for nearly an hour. No apparent cause for the slow down that I could determine -- no accident or other obvious road construction -- my only thought was that it was four o'clock and everyone just looked at their watches and said, "time for rush hour!" and promptly hit the breaks.
So, even though we left at 8:00 am, we didn't get into Valparaiso until nearly 5:30 pm. We dropped our stuff in the door, and headed over to the nursing home to visit Shawn's dad. I have to say I was expecting him to look much worse than he did. We actually had a very pleasant visit, and then we headed off to dinner and home to crash.
This morning we're off to see him again. Shawn will probably spend the day hanging out, and Mason and I will explore the town -- mostly to stay out from under foot. Grandpa loves seeing him, of course, but he his a squirrely four year old.
Oh... and wireless is working. Hooray!