1. The Deke and I bolted out of bed, wasted little time gathering our things, and left the pre-apocalyptic bleak Communist bloc suburb-scape of Elyria, OH and soon pulled into a service center off the Ohio Turnpike and the Deke brought a cinnamon crunch bagel and a cinnamon crunch scone and dark roast coffee out to the Sube from Panera while I filled up the Sube with gas. It being Sunday, the Ohio Turnpike was not very busy and we glided through the rest of Ohio, across the top of Indiana, and on into Illinois.
2. My hope that possibly the traffic wouldn't be too choked in Chicago was mostly realized. I've certainly experienced more gridlock on the freeways there than we did today. No matter how thick or moderate the traffic, though, it's worth all the effort just to enjoy driving the Chicago Skyway and gawk at the grandeur of the Chicago skyline.
3. At some point, we decided to drive to Eau Claire, WI rather than La Crosse and we pulled into the Best Western parking lot around 6:15. Everything at this motel turned out to be more pleasant. We got settled in a bit and I took a little trip to Chipotle again -- we enjoyed bowls so much last night that we decided to go for it again -- and I went to a spirited supermarket called Festival Foods and picked up a 20 oz Coca Cola, a 750 ml can of Foster's lager, in tribute to David Diedrich, and a small box of wine for the Deke. By the time I got back, it was 8:00 and relaxing with food, soda, and beer helped me eventually melt into bed and fall blissfully asleep.
One more thing: Charly and Maggie have been really good dogs. They have endured the long days in their crate in the back of the Subaru quietly, for the most part, and have travelled really well. Having to dogs makes it very difficult to do any sight seeing or visiting of family or friends on this trip. It all works better if we do what we've done for the first two days of our drive: just keep going forward!
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