Our first official stop is Kildeer, IL (outskirts of Chicago) to visit with our friend’s Diane and Scott and their family (though their daughter will not be there as she is in Tanzania with the Peace Corps). We met Diane and Scott in 2003 when we went on the Macalester Alumni trip to Cuba. Diane and I went to Macalester at totally different times, but became fast friends on that trip. In 2003, an alumni trip to Cuba was one of the only legal ways to get in to Cuba (under the educational waiver). While we were in Cuba, Castro executed a bunch of dissidents and the educational waiver program was subsequently shut down. Since then the ability to legally visit Cuba as an American tourist has changed multiple times. I am glad that we could see it when we did. And, of course, seeing it with a bunch of Macalester alumni and becoming friends with Diane and Scott made it even more meaningful.
It was another long day of driving to get from Council Bluffs, IA to Kildeer.
As we drove through IA we were interested to see a lot of wind power and several trucks transporting the blades for the wind machines. At times the landscape seemed a bit alien – farms and wind machines – very different from when my family drove through IA from MN when I was a kid.
At one of our gas stops throughout the day we saw a burned out car sitting in the parking lot (frighteningly close to the gas pumps). When we went inside to use the restrooms the alarms were still going off. The attendants said that a car drove up and suddenly caught fire. Needless to say the pumps were immediately turned off and no gas was being sold. I was glad that we arrived after the car fire was out because driving up to a gas station and seeing a car in flames would be quite alarming (and clearly cause a VERY fast exit).
We eventually made it to IL (I missed the “Welcome to IL” sign so I had to settle with the “IL Rest Area” sign) and to Diane and Scott’s house. Their house is beautiful and we have our own guest suite so we are living in luxury.
Diane got pizza from one of my favorite pizza places on earth for dinner. I have only had it one other time – probably about 13 or 14 years ago and never forgot it. The crust has cornmeal in it so it is absolutely divine. We ate out on their fabulous patio. As an added bonus, Diane and Scot have a cute boxer named Tracks so we could spend some quality time with him as well.
North Atlantic Canada 2019 