7/14/2007

Leaving the house was a strange experience. One feeling I had was "once I had all this!", since our new living quarters will be much smaller. Another was immense sadness to be leaving not only this house, but the area in which we spent the last 10 years of our lives. Maryland saw us married, was the birthplace of both boys, was the burial place of two of our cats. We played and laughed and cried and did pretty much everything in life in our time in Maryland. So it's hard to leave all that behind.

As I was riding in the shuttle to the airport, I tried to think of the many times I had driven down I270 - to the NIH, to the Zoo, to Bethesda for dinner with friends, to my tap dance lessons - and the George Washington Parkway - to DC for dinner, plays at the Shakespeare Theatre, shows at the Kennedy Center, trips to museums and the monuments. A lot gets packed into ten years.

And so goodbye to Maryland and off to Chicago. The flight was smooth enough. I got my luggage with no problems and Sweetie and the Things found me with no problems. We met up with Ralph, a friend of mine from Bucknell days, and his new bride for dinner. It was good to see them and talk to them, since we missed the wedding. Then it was downtown to a hotel off Grant Park.

The next day was spent visiting the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium. In the Field museum we looked at the Ancient Egypt exhibit, the Evolving Planet exhibit (which traces the history of life on earth from the first single-cell organisms through dinosaurs and to modern life forms), and the Underground Adventure, which taught about the variety and magnitude of microscopic life in the soil. The boys had a great time and behaved very well. The underground and the dinosaurs left a big impression, while the thing mostly remembered from the Egyptian exhibit was that the guts were pulled out. After a quick lunch, we headed over to the Shedd to look at the dolphins, whales, and Amazon exhibit. We decided to try an adventure for dinner. We took the subway uptown and ate at Gino's East. Again, the boys did pretty well, although they did feel the need to touch every building in the city.

Friday morning we started the day by going up the Sears tower. It was a lovely day, and the view was magnificent. Poor Thing 1 bought a souvenir that was dropped, broken and discarded before we left the building. We drove to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and camped in Wyalusing State Park. The park sits on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It was pretty quiet as state parks go. We had a campfire and made s'mores. The boys slept well that night, the parents, not so much. Our bodies have aged past being able to be comfortable sleeping on the ground.

The boys made sure our neighbors were up early the next morning, as we broke camp and headed over to Effigy Mounds National Monument. This is a place where ancient natives built earthen mounds in various shapes over burial sites. It was a beautiful park, very clean, with well-maintained trails. And it had beautiful views of the Mississippi river valley and the mounds. We saw a garter snake and a pickerel frog, and Thing 1 earned a Junior Ranger badge. After a quick picnic lunch, it was back into the car for a long drive across Iowa. It was peculiar how Wisconsin seemed so scenic while Iowa seemed very boring. Lots of corn. We were driving across on Rt 20 (rather than I90), which was likely a much more interesting road, even if it was not necessarily more scenic. (if that makes any sense). It reminded me a bit of the movie Cars when they talk about in the old days the road moved with the land, not through it. Anyway, after the long drive (and some long naps), they boys are not tired this evening.