Did you enjoy this past summer? It went by so fast that I seem to have missed it. The weather was so cool most of the time that I barely used the air conditioner. Work and family kept me much closer to home than I had planned.
As far as staycations go, the highlight of my summer was a car trip to Gary, Indiana with my brother-in-law a couple weeks ago. He’s a disabled Vietnam veteran who was hospitalized for the last 3 months of 2008, and spent the first half of 2009 recuperating. I don’t know which of us had a worse case of cabin fever, but when he asked me to go to a reunion of his Marine buddies, I jumped at the chance.
Adding to his frustration was the fact that he’d bought a hot little red Audi TT convertible in 2008 and really hadn’t gotten to drive it at all. So this trip was a two-fer for him. Since I got to drive the car most of the way there, I got a little bonus fun, too! The hottest car I ever owned was a 1981 Firebird with a T-top. It looked sharp, but it was handicapped by an energy-saving transmission, so it wasn’t exactly a speed demon.
The trip to Indiana meant going through Chicago, so in order to avoid the traffic there, we left at about 4AM. The drive was just a dream. We spent the morning driving through Wisconsin and northern Illinois. I enjoy the rural scenery, trying to guess what crops were growing the the fields we passed and laughing at the funny signs for tourist traps. Sadly, we didn’t have time to stop and see the local sights.
Every area seems to have a different approach to catering to people travelling by car. The Chicago area had something I’d never seen before. There were a couple of off-ramps that existed only to serve these travelers’ oasis – small pavilions with a single gas station, a quick-mart, and a mini-mall food court. I filled my quota of McDonald’s a couple of decades ago, and our visit to this food court renewed my aversion for them. It’s not that the food is so bad, as much as I always come away wishing I’d made a different choice.
We passed through Chicago a little before noon, and except for the pervasive construction zones, we made pretty good time. It had been four years since I’d been on a real car trip (or anything resembling a vacation), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. We had a good audiobook to help pass the time, and once we passed through some rain in the morning, we had fair weather all the way. I took my computer with me so I could keep an eye on my websites (and watch Netflix movies before bed), but otherwise I was unplugged and disconnected from the pressures of work. So I came back with some fresh energy and made the decision to take a short trip to Los Angeles in September to see some old friends from California.
Now that summer is on the wane, I hope you’ll be able to take advantage of the remainder of the season and enjoy yourself, your family, and friends. All Americans could stand having their emotional batteries recharged by getting away from the stresses of our lives and focusing on the people that matter the most to us.