Day 72 - A day of friends and family

 Well that was a GREAT night of sleep!  I guess I missed sleeping on an actual mattress.  I didn’t wake up once and don’t think I moved for about 8 hours.  And then, after I woke up and wandered upstairs, I found out I was going to be treated to biscuits and gravy for breakfast.  Talk about something that was NOT part of camping - thank you Mom for the special treat!


After a bit of visiting after breakfast, I collapsed the camper and headed out.  I made a brief stop just outside of town to see Ken and Lorie.  It was a short visit, but I was glad to have seen them both on the beginning and the end of the trip!

The drive into the Chicago area was pretty uneventful.  I met up with my Uncle Joe for a bit as I left Rover and Dover in a big parking lot.  We talked fishing and the Cubs as we always do.  It was great to see him, even if briefly.  After chatting a bit, i asked him to drop me off at my old stopping ground Ledo’s pizza.




I had invited a number of my close friends to join me at Ledo’s and it wasn’t long before they arrived to chat.  I can’t say how grateful I am that they all took time out of their day to join me for some pizza and drinks.  It was amazing to see them all!






After leaving Ledo’s, I wandered over to Naperville where more of my friends, Bob and Jody had opened their house to me for the evening.  They had been downtown working on a project with their son all day, but we arrived to their house within minutes of each other.  It was so great to see them again after far too many years.  We walked downtown together to get some Detroit style pizza.  I didn’t know this was a thing, but I enjoyed it.  In truth though, I don’t think I’ve met a pizza I don’t like!  


While the pizza was good, the company was far better.  These two always have such interesting topics to discuss and they made me feel so welcome to stay with them.  I do hope someday to return the favor someday soon.


Since it was Sunday night (not that it mattered for this unemployed guy - ha!), but also because Bob and Jody had spent the day working, we all decided that an early evening was in order.  So, we packed it in and called it a night.  Thank you again for hosting Bob and Jody!


    

Total mileage - 12,216

# States/Provinces - 19 / 2


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 2 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - Dolphins and a Water Park in a State Park

Image
 7/19 - Chesapeake, VA to Killens Pond, DE Well the anticipated storm as we went to bed arrived and dumped LOTS of rain on us.  AS such, we had a damp start to morning. Amy woke early and had gone out for coffee (I forgot to pack ground coffee - first discovered mistake) and gas us up. She encountered lots of closed stores that early, but persistence paid off.  We enjoyed bagels for breakfast and then boys explored park while Amy and I packed up trailer. We had a long drive day so we didn't linger.    After a minor detour, we found the route to the bridge tunnel highway. After a quick inspection "are your propane tanks closed?", we were onto the bridge/tunnel.  As our first surprise of the trip, before we reached the first tunnel section, we saw 30-40 dolphins in the water!  Unfortunately, only Sebastian and I got to see them before we drove past.  However, we all got to see many kayakers/boats enjoying their Saturday on Chesapeake Bay. We enjoyed...
Read more

Thoughts after a month back home

Image
It's been a month since I got home.  I wanted to put some notes of reflection on record, but I also wanted to have a chance to re-connect with the normal world before I did.  30 days feels like a good number of days to have the perspective to come to some conclusions on the trip and life in general.  So, here goes. Main notes from the trip     - The USA has a LOT to see in it.  As a family we only entered ten states and really only entered two of them (Idaho and Arizona) in passing on the highway.  We spent almost eight weeks in these eight states and saw snow capped mountains, farmlands, deserts, canyons, rivers, waterfalls, rain forests, sandy beaches, rocky coasts, and volcanoes.  There are many countries that can't offer half of this list.      - Despite having nine weeks to do all the exploring we did, it felt rushed.  We covered almost 7,500 miles in those nine weeks so there's a reason it felt rushed, but when I left, of...
Read more

Day 20 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - ANOTHER State Park Pool!

Image
8/6 - Chenango Valley State Park, NY to Little Buffalo State Park, PA We woke up to cool dry air this morning after an amazingly quiet night (especially considering camp has over 100 sites).  We all started our day with oatmeal.   Today was planned as a bit of a casual transition day - we didn't expect much of the day other than to get us to Little Buffalo State Park which would serve as our launching point for tomorrow's big day.  As such, we packed up and got on the road. Because we had yet to find a good maple donut, we continued our search and planned for a stop at Manni's in Binghamton.  Unfortunately, in all my driving, I had gotten lax with my attentiveness and failed to notice the combination of narrow roads and high curbs that Binghamton offers.  As such, I made my left hand turn a bit sharp and took out curb with the Pathfinder.  Before I could react and stop, I looked in mirror and watched as the trailer went airborne with its own bump off t...
Read more