Posts Tagged “illinois”

We were pretty psyched to leave that gnarly Days Inn in Ohio from last night. We got on the road fairly early (for us) and within a couple of hours (and some weaving in and out of Indiana), we were in Kentucky!

Woo hoo! Six states to go…

Anyway, before we knew it, we had arrived at our first destination… the Creation Museum! I don’t think I can really articulate our experience there, so I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly) and you can draw your own conclusions. Okay?

First of all, there’s an outdoor garden/nature trail that leads to a petting zoo that includes a zebra-donkey hybrid. You can see here that he or she is obviously planning a grand (albeit very slow) escape…

We didn’t spend too much time outside since it was pretty cold and windy and cloudy and blah, and anyway, the main part of the museum is inside. There’s a large walk-through exhibit that depicts the early events in Genesis in 3D, often animatronic detail. Here’s our first protaganist, Adam:

Way to be strategically placed, sheep. Anyway, as with most situations, the Garden of Eden exhibit is all fun and innocent games until you add in a vegetarian raptor:

And then here are some dinosaurs boarding Noah’s Ark:

Unlike the Eden photos above, that particular ark photo is actually from a diorama-style smaller exhibit, and I reluctantly admit that those particular dinosaurs are not animatronic. In fact, I think they are action figures that are available for sale in the Creation Museum gift shop.

Aaaaaanyway, after we left the museum, we thought another Great Flood was coming because there was crazy heavy rain combined with some serious wind gusts. We made it through though and continued on our way through Louisville, Kentucky! We made a random (and very brief) stop to see this:

It’s the world’s oldest ornamental water tower; it hasn’t pumped any water in a century, but it’s now an art museum! We actually didn’t plan that stop — we just stumbled upon it, which is of course the most rewarding way to enjoy the road! But we didn’t just stumble upon this:

Yep. That’s exactly what you think it is. And if you ever visit the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, and wish to pay your respects to Colonel Sanders, enter the cemetery on the Grinstead side and simply follow the yellow line.

But… if this all seems morbid to you, don’t worry. Much like Elvis, the Colonel lives on:

We spied the Colonel alive and well, waiting for the bus in downtown Louisville. No, we did not accost him and demand the secret recipe for fried chicken eternal life.

We made it to our Super 8 in Okawville, Illinois, just barely in time to catch LOST. Tomorrow the plan involves conquering Oklahoma!

Well, we didn’t do all that much in Chicago, honestly. It was pretty challenging with Brian’s conference, and the election celebration kind of knocked us both out for yesterday (though Brian did make it to class — good job, Brian!). Then today, after several days of unseasonably warm (balmy, even) weather and sunshine, things took a turn and we had pretty serious clouds and scattered rain, so it wasn’t the most pleasant day for exploring. But we do have a few more things to share from our trip, such as the view from our hotel room!

We could see the Sears Tower (kind of hard to spot in this photo, but it’s there in the background to the left of the red crane) and the river and everything. Nice! And today, despite the rain, we did go back down to Millennium Park & Grant Park to see it in the daytime without a quarter of a million other people there, and we visited The Bean:

I love a bean. I also loved seeing the banners that arrived yesterday:

We’ll have to return to Chicago at some point to do more awesome stuff! We’re in Ohio now at a Super 8 outside Toledo and should get home by late tomorrow.

Brian and I were so lucky to be in Chicago tonight and to be able to attend the Obama rally in Grant Park (which is within walking distance from our hotel). I wish I had a better command of language so I could express to you how overwhelming, incredible, special, inspiring, moving, and amazing our evening was; things being as they are, I’m just going to show you some pictures from our night.

On the way back to our room, Brian and I were talking about the unlikely series of events in our lives that brought us here to Chicago and to this moment — and how lucky we are that we’ve had this amazing handful of months in which pretty much every day we’ve gotten to do something that we’ll both remember forever. We feel truly fortunate to have been here for this historic night! America, thank you for voting!! YES WE CAN!!!

So, today was mostly just a driving day, but when we saw how close we were to Indiana Jones Dunes National Lakeshore, we couldn’t resist stopping in to check it out. We went to the visitor center and asked what we should see in our limited time and the ladies there recommended West Beach, so off we went. We trekked up these steps to an overlook:

… where we were rewarded with a great view of Chicago, looking Atlantis-like in the distance across Lake Michigan:

A strange aspect of this national park is that the parkland isn’t contiguous — that’s not unheard of; for example, Acadia’s parkland isn’t contiguous either, but what’s weird about Indiana Dunes is that the non-parkland in between parcels of parkland houses giant factories and industrial centers.

This kind of disrupts communing with nature and the like, even when you happen to come to the park during sunset:

Still, though, both the dunes themselves and Lake Michigan are so beautiful:

Oh, Indiana. I had no idea.

So anyway, after that, we finally drove into Chicago!

We’re staying at a very nice hotel for a change because Brian’s conference is being held here. After months of cheap motels, I had completely forgotten how refreshing and rejuvenating it can be to stay in a place with, like, real furniture, a nice bathroom, a comfy bed, etc. Brian is going to be in class for most of the trip, and I’m planning on spending a lot of time sitting on the chaise lounge next to the big window in our room with a lovely view of the Chicago River and working on my laptop away from construction noise. Don’t worry, we’ll do some fun Chicago things, too — hopefully including attending Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday night. Please don’t forget to VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!

How long have I been waiting to say that? Actually, we’re not in Missouri or Illinois anymore either. Today was probably the biggest distance push we’ve made so far. We realized that if we tried, we could actually make it home tomorrow!! So, that’s the goal. Huzzah!

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After we left Junction City this morning, we got on the road and left I-70 for a quick lunch break in Kansas City. On the way, we saw this guy:

Soon, we were in Missouri!

We drove straight through and went down to visit our friend the Gateway Arch in St. Louis:

We met the Arch in 2005 when we had been dating for a few months and Brian had to go to St. Louis for a conference, so I tagged along. At that point, we actually took the tour up to the top of the Arch, which was a terrifying journey in a very small, rickety space pod–looking thing. This time, we could only stay for a quick visit.

Then we crossed the Mississippi River and were in Illinois!

And then we drove through Illinois and found ourselves in Indiana!!

As you can see, we are really focused on getting home now. We’re staying at a Super 8 in Greenfield, Ind., and we are hoping to push ourselves to make it home tomorrow evening. Woo hoo!