Friday June 28 and Saturday June 29 2002

Fort Dodge, IA to Chicago, IL and a day in Chicago, IL

Weather: Mostly Sunny ...High around 95

Total Miles To Date 7,991 miles

Money spent Friday:

$48.40 for hotel

$44.25 on gas

$3.90 on food

$25 on food and beer

$8 on parking

Total Spent Friday

$129.55

Money spent Saturday:

$10 on cab to downtown Chicago

$21 on Taste of Chicago tickets

$15 on camcorder videotape

$10 on cab back

$10 on dinner

Total spent Saturday

$66

Total Spent Friday and Saturday

$195.55

Total Spent To Date

$3,414.18

For the second time on my voyage two, days have gone by without an update to my website.  So, I will cram two into one....

Friday June 28

8am woke up and watched shrek in bed for a little while

10:55 and I checked out of the hotel and headed east on rte 20.

Once I passed Fort Dodge, Iowa has become so flat it's ridiculous.  The highway has become so straight, that if I put my car on cruise control (which I don't have) and I had perfect alignment (which I don't have) I could just let the car go straight for an hour.  

I passed a place called Otho, Iowa...I don't know why I liked that, but there you go.

There's nothing but corn in Iowa...

2pm and I'm at Field of Dreams.  I came here just because of the movie.  They filmed the pretty much the entire film here.  Here being a town called Dyersville, Iowa.  

That's the entrance, the house and a view from the batter's box.  Some people took it way to seriously and came completely dressed in full baseball regalia.  There were even people just playing and I joined in for two innings.  It was fun but there was no reason to stay for more than about 1/2 hour.

2:45 and I continue onto 20 East

3:20 and I drive over the Mississippi and now  I'm in Illinois

I love the 4:20 Floyd that a radio station plays here.

I even drove by Normal, Illinois

6:15 and I'm in the Chicago O'Hare area.  I'm also welcomes to Friday afternoon rush hour traffic.  Everything moved to a crawl.  

7:45pm I finally pulled into Chicago itself.  I stayed in a section of town called Lincoln Park.

I parked my car across the street from the hotel and chilled in my room for a while.  

9:45 I'm now ready to go out and meet Kim and her friends in a bar near where I am.

10pm and I meet Kim and her friends at a bowling alley.  Yes, a bowling alley.  But this bowling alley has a bar connected to it and a band playing...Strange but fun.  I had some pizza, drank some beer and basically just had a good time talking to people here.

I hung out till the bar closed, which is at 1 on Fridays in Chicago.  The bars close at 4 on Saturdays...I've closed bars before...Never closed a bowling alley before.  Kim and her most of her friends went home.  Wendy, another of Kim's friends and I went out and had burrito's (good, but not as good as the bullfrogs in San Diego).  I then dropped her off at home and I went back to sleep..

Saturday June 29

Woke up around 12noon and finally got motivated to go out.  I picked a good weekend to come to Chicago.  They're having a big festival called the "Taste of Chicago".  It's basically a huge street fair where many of Chicago's restaurants are set up to let every one sample their foods.  You bought tickets, and for around $1 you could sample all their foods...I ate SO MUCH....It was all so good.  They also had free music and entertainment there and as luck would have it, today was a country act.  Vince Gill and Joanna Janet were playing today.  I caught a piece of that and then watched a bit of the diving show.  Yes, they even set up a high dive team show.  I walked across Lake Shore Drive and checked out the lake.  It was magnificent.  Farther up on the Drive was beach and tons of people were enjoying the beach today.  Imagine having beach in Manhattan.  It's very cool.  I walked up Michigan Avenue and enjoyed all that was there.  I visited the Hancock building and the Navy Pier.  It's unfortunate I only have one day here.  It's a fun city very similar to New York and just like NY, it's impossible to do everything in one day.

For all the Blues Brothers Fans out there....

Now, views of Chicago

Chicago ruled.  I got back around 9pm...and after getting something to eat for dinner I just fell asleep...

C YA

notes:

I love construction in these middle states....They have no problem just closing a road and redirecting you to share the other side with oncoming traffic.

Total Miles Traveled Today

410