September 05, 2006

Notes on the Trip

And... we're back. After eight days and more than 2,600 miles, Becca and I returned this evening from our epic road trip to Minnesota, by way of Cincinnati, Chicago, and Wisconsin. We had lots of fun and saw lots of cows, and after all those hours the wedding is still on, which is probably the best news.

I won't do the whole Simmons running diary thing, but rather some Peter King-like Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Notes. A few tales from the road:

- We made it straight from Philly to Cincinnati in just eight hours, with just about no traffic. Funny how they're in neighboring states, but couldn't be more different. We also briefly crossed into West Virginia, so I can now cross that off the list of states I've never been to.

Anyway, we thankfully got to have Graeter's ice cream (the best in the U.S., if you ask me), visit our friends who recently moved to the area, and walk around a bit on the waterfront near Great American Ballpark.

- We stopped in downtown Indianapolis briefly, and I can't tell if it's an extremely underwhelming city, or if the bad weather just made it seem that way. Can anyone who's been there enlighten me?

- Indiana and Ohio really need to get into the game, and start accepting EZ-Pass, like Illinois does. Or they could emulate Wisconsin, and just stop having tolls altogether.

- Weirdest moment of the trip: We were listening to the radio while driving through Ohio, we heard a news update about the awful murder of Marcus Fiesel, a three-year-old disabled child who died after his foster parents left him in a closet. The kicker- the newscaster delivering the update had a voice identical to that of Bullwinkle. So I could think of was "Gee Rocky, a child was murdered!"

- After that we arrived in Chicago, which has always been one of my favorite cities. I've loved it ever since I first visited with my dad when I was eight years old, and I made it back to visit friends numerous times in high school and college. But aside from a couple of airport layovers, I hadn't made it back since '99.

It was great to be back. We walked around everywhere, had great pizza and hot dogs, hit a dynamite blues club, and looked down on the city from the Hancock tower. Not to mention the Untouchables Gangster Tour, which I recommend for anyone who visits Chitown.

We also made it to both Chicago ballparks. I was much less impressed with U.S. Cellular Field- no matter how much they remodel it, it just doesn't have the alive spirit that all the new parks do. Like most of the crowd, I was also following the scoreboard and the Twins-Royals game, but for different reasons. Unfortunately for me, the Sox won and the Twins (but they have since made up the ground).

Wrigley is a magical place to see a game, although it was sort of hard to care much about a sloppily played Cubs-Pirates game in September. I was just glad the game wasn't rained out, after it rained on the entire drive there.

- In addition to both Chicago parks, we walked/drove by an inordinately large number of sporting venues over the course of the trip: both Great American Ballpark and Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati; Soldier Field and Allstate Arena in Chicago; Indianapolis Motor Speedway; Miller Park in Milwaukee; the Target Center, Metrodome, and XCel Energy Center in the Twin Cities; Notre Dame Stadium; and Fifth Third Field, the home park of the Toledo Mud Hens.

- It was also great to have a chance to drive through Wisconsin again, as I used to several times a year. I had also forgotten about the Bong Recreation Area south of Milwaukee, which always gave me a chuckle. I hear the sign is stolen quite often.

- Nice to see family and friends again back in Minnesota. We were in town for a wedding, as well as the rehearsal dinner and bachelor party. But thankfully we got to spend some time in the Cities and see some people while there.

The wedding was of this blog's frequent commenter, Jeff S., to his girlfriend of ten years, Rose. Only in America can a Jewish boy marry a Filipino girl, after which they head to Africa on their honeymoon.

We made it back tonight, after stopping the night in Toledo (at the worst hotel I've ever been to, by far). But we're glad to be home. Back to work tomorrow.

Posted by Stephen Silver at September 5, 2006 09:24 PM
Comments

Welcome back, Steve. Glad to know you are just one state away, instead of 15...

Posted by: Ev at September 6, 2006 04:51 PM

Is that really the worst hotel?))) I only can name the best hotels I’ve visited. For example, Crowne Plaza in Sydney…

Posted by: Irina at September 6, 2006 11:25 PM

That Seagate hotel looks like a cross between the Adams Mark and the hotel from The Shining.

Posted by: LilB at September 7, 2006 09:35 AM
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