Airports... yeay!

Sitting in Atlanta airport now between flights. Should board the plane back to Manchester soon. The flight to Atlanta sucked! Turbulence the entire way, and a somewhat rough landing. All while my stomach was in knots from too much boozing in New Orleans last night. Luckily it was a short flight. Hopefully this one will be better. Stomach is definitely in better shape now so at the very least I won't be fighting that back the whole way. I've got plenty more pictures of the trip that still need posting, but since "free" airport, and in flight wi-fi isn't actually free they'll have to wait 'til I land.

Chicago revistited

I'm currently relaxing in a nice air conditioned apartment just down the street from Tulane.  We got most of my sisters stuff moved over here to her temporary domicile last night.  One of her new roommates is out of town for a while, and invited us to stay at her current place while we clean out Marlene's old apartment.  She can't move into the new apartment just yet as the current tenants are still there, so this apartment is serving as a intermediary storage space/living quarters until she can.  We decided against going out last night, fine by me as money is starting to get pretty tight, and I actually managed to get a good nights sleep.  If you ask me this is as good a time as any to attempt to catch up on the blog.  So without further ado... back to the windy city.

We have not set any particular itinerary for this trip beyond my insistence that we go to Hot Doug's.  Thanks to the Chicago episode of No Reservations I did know of a handful of other interesting looking foodie stops if we happened to be in the area.  Thursday morning marked our second day in Chicago and our first real opportunity to check out the city, so of course that is exactly what we didn't do.  Instead we visited the Bahai temple in Wilmette, about 20-30 minutes north of Chicago.  The grounds were under construction, but we were able to get into the building and walk around approximately half of the garden surrounding it.  If you ever find yourself in the area, especially if you're there with someone special, I suggest you check this place out.  Even with the construction the garden was serene, and absolutely beautiful.  The building itself was little more than a dome covering a single large chamber, but it featured incredibly intricate designs covering every inch of the stonework.  There is also a visitors center underneath the main room that explains the Bahai religion, and shows their other temples (only 7 worldwide).

From Roadtrip pics

From Roadtrip pics

From Roadtrip pics

From Roadtrip pics

The temple sits at the end of a cobblestone street lined with gorgeous houses and shade trees just off Lake Michigan.  After leaving there we headed to a state park on the lake, but didn't stay long because none of us were dressed for the beach.  On the way back we hit Burt's Place for some Chicago style deep-dish pizza.  Now being from New England I really can't say that Chicago pizza is better or worse than our pizza, it's just different.  Burt's pizzas however were excellent regardless of how you like your crust.  Their hours are a bit weird, but if you're anywhere near the neighborhood it's definitely worth a visit.  On the way back we visited with a friend of Hallie's, and then ended the night at another friend's place.  Judging from those that I've met I really like the people in Chicago.  It's refreshing to get away from the Boston/New York attitude.

Ugghhh.... Why are bars open that late?

New Orleans... you suck. I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep because it's the middle of the damn day and normal people don't sleep right now. We went out last night to Bourbon St. To a strip club oddly enough, yeah my sister and I have a surprisingly comfortable relationship. Friends of Marlene's were going, had free passes, and the drinks were cheap. It was actually a pretty crazy night, and considering it was a friggin' MONDAY I'm beginning to get the feeling that you need to be a professional drunk to party here. We ended the night at a local dive bar that serves strong $1 drinks 24 hours a day. Did I say night? That's not entirely accurate since the goddamn sun was up by the time we left. Not the darkness beginning to fade, not a little light, not rising... UP. The lack of sleep surprisingly isn't bothering me right now, but I can definitely feel it in my muscles, and in my head. I swear by the end of this trip I'm going to be adjusted to running on 4 hours of sleep a night/morning. Either that or I'll just go into a minor coma.

Pictures enroute to Chicago

So I had intended to write an update, and get some photos up during my sisters driving stint on the way down to New Orleans. Unfortunately I was reliant on good data coverage to my cellphone to do that, and nearly the entire way through Alabama & Mississippi I was relegated to GPRS. Nowhere near up to the task. We're in New Orleans now, arrived at about 1:30 this morning, and we have to get up early to begin moving my sisters things to her new place. That is my mini-update, and here are a handful of pictures from day 2 of the journey (our first day in Chigago).

New York is a really LONG state. We hit Ohio at dawn.


Not a whole lot in Ohio...


...Except farm equipment...


...And animals.


Gotta love a city so supportive of their sports teams.


Marlene & Hallie in front of the Chicago skyline before the White Sox game.


Sox game.


Final Score (taken just before the last pitch).


Chicago skyline at night (excuse the blurryness I was using a little point and shoot)


All the pictures of the road trip can be seen on Picasa

New photos will be uploaded as time and bandwidth allow.

Te-Te-Tennessee

I fell behind with the updates quite a bit while we were in Chicago.  We were just too busy having fun to bother allotting any time to writing.  We've just crossed into Tennessee approximately 7 hours into our drive with another 8 hours at least ahead of us.  We've decided to skip Atlanta and just head straight to New Orleans.  According to Streets & Trips we should be arriving around 1:00-1:30.

We'll see how much typing I can get done before the motion sickness kicks in.  If my stomach is up to the task I'll try to catch up on the Chicago happenings.

Chicago day 0.5

The drive to Chicago was uneventful to the point of being somewhat disappointing.  By all accounts nothing happened... at all.  The thing that struck me most, as trite as it may sound, was the emptiness of the mid-west.  When we first crossed into Ohio I was surprised to see vast fields of grapes.  I was unaware that there was even a mid-western wine industry, and here we were surrounded by mile upon mile of vineyards.  Sadly that was about as exciting as the drive got.  I'll upload a few pictures of the nothing that we drove through.

We arrived in Chicago, or more precisely Villa Park, at about noon yesterday.  After meeting up with Marlene's girlfriend Hallie we grabbed a quick bite to eat, tried my first Chicago Red Hot, and headed into town for a White Sox game.  I'm really not a baseball fan by any means but the game was good.  We honestly were too busy goofing around to notice the first few innings, and by the time we were paying any attention the Sox were already down 3-1.  They had a decent drive in the 9th inning, but fell short ending the game at 3-2.

For some unknown reason the local highway department apparently decided it would be a good idea to begin construction on as many streets as possible at the same time. We were stuck in traffic for far too long considering that it was after midnight on a Wednesday night.  Traffic was bumper to bumper.  We capped the night off with some good company at Hallie's brothers house.

Once again exhaustion is getting the better of me.  Pictures are currently being uploaded and will be added once they're ready to go.

And we're off...

There's not much to write about at this point trip-wise, so I suppose now is as good a time as any for an introductory post. My sister Marlene is headed into her final year of study at Tulane down in New Orleans. Our mother picked up a cheap '02 Kia Spectra for her as a gift, and we've spent the last week getting the car ready for the long drive back to Louisiana.

We packed up the car and hit the road at approximately 8:45 tonight in a bid to avoid traffic. Marlene is at the helm for the first leg driving through rain-soaked Mass and into upstate New York. Weather is absolutely miserable, and visibility is shit. The highway is quiet though. From here we're driving straight through to Chicago following I-90 the majority of the way. According to my routing software it should be a 15-16 hour trip.

Updates will be forthcoming (perhaps I'll even be able to get Marlene to make a few posts), but for now it's nap time. I've got the overnight stint.

-Charlie