Yeah I made it to Missouri. My first meal ever in my life in Missouri was at McDonalds. What news!!! LOL Bethany is a cowtown (Kuhdorf in German). Basically means quite small. It’s also very white. Oh my. I saw a sign which said: Report fuel tax evasion. I have no idea what you should do. It would be funny to call that number and ask: Can you help? I have stopped my car and I’m not sure if I’m evading the fuel tax. I’m afraid to go any further…. :-)
Here is my first picture of me in Missouri.
I’m back on the road again. Today I’ll be spending most of my time on the I-35 South. Also I’ll visit two new states Missouri and Kansas. I wonder what they will look like. Who knows what adventures I’ll encounter, but can’t really spend too much time as driving time without stops is 6 hours according to GPS right now. I need to get more sleep. Went so late to bed as I still had so many important tasks to do. Then at 7:36am I woke up again. Obviously didn’t get out of bed right away. But I couldn’t sleep anymore. Then I had some breakfast at the hotel. Some hot tea (can’t drink regular coffee. I don’t like the taste of it.) I have become a coffee snob. LOL. Some french toast and a yoghurt. After that had to go to Zanzibar again. I love that place. No spills this time. :-) That’s pretty much all the news I have right now. Wishing everyone a wonderful day!
The relaxation was so nice. I went to the backseat, put on some tunes and relaxed. I didn’t fall asleep. Only some deep relaxation state. Arrived at the same hotel as on the way to Chicago. This time I’m on the 3rd floor (top floor of the building) so I don’t have to worry about getting a fashion show in the morning. :-)
Took a quick shower and went to dinner. They took us to a Thai restaurant. The food was good. Although I couldn’t eat it every day. The conversation was even better. Kisha told her hilerous wedding dress story. It was so funny.
Then got invited to go to a Dairy Queen for dessert. Sat there forever until they closed and basically said it’s time to leave.
Still had to figure out the new route. Today’s destination will be Wichita, KS.
Ok I still have to finish up something important. I have the pictures from Monday on the server, but I still haven’t had time to decide which ones to make available or label them. Didn’t really take a lot of pictures today as I basically had to make it to Ankeny, IA as quickly as possible without any adventures. Except for the one where I missed the on-ramp. :-)
Back to relaxing for me. Back to Iowa. Back to I-80. Back to West of the Mississippi. Back to K Land. Back to lots of wind. How many more “Back to” can I come up with?
What was cool the GPS decided not to take the I-80 out from Chicago back to Iowa. It suggested to use the I-88 which is a little north of the I-80. So got to see a different route. Both meet each other again a few miles before going into Iowa.
I didn’t mention all the tolls you have to pay going in and going out of Chicago on the Interstate. It’s quite a few. There were 5 going out. The interesting part is they don’t tell you how much it is until you are at the last sign before the toll plaza. I think they should tell you a little earlier. But this time we were prepared and had an enormous collection of quarters and nickels in the cupholders. Going in the stations were not manned at all. Something funny happened on the way in. I wasn’t driving so I don’t get the blame. Ha Ha Ha. It said it’s 30 cents. So Eric drops the money in and takes off. I said: Hey I couldn’t read the sign. I think it listed different prices based on the time at those coin net machines. The huge freeway signs said nothing about that. I also said I’m not sure if we got a green light. He didn’t know either. Oh well we said and had a conversation about tolls and not paying them. At the next toll plaza there was lots of traffic and it’s really confusing which lanes go to the plaza and others which are for the iPass. No it’s not a new Apple device. It’s so you can drive through without looking for change. Anyway guess what sure enough we realize we are in the wrong lane. But it was too late. You shouldn’t do unsafe lane changes like some crazy drivers so he drove through the iPass lanes. I held my iPhone to the toll plaza camera, but I realized too late that I need the iPass device. LOL. Actually I gave him such a hard time about it. It was so funny. I laughed so hard, because I knew why it happened. But it seems to be a common problem. I started to see signs everywhere which said: Forgot to pay your toll, go online to pay it. If they would improve their signage I’m sure it would cut down on those incidents. I don’t remember having this problem in Florida. I guess they just have too many bridges etc so they know how it’s supposed to be done.
They do have reststops in Illinois which they call Oases (singular Oasis). Basically it’s a reststop with services so you don’t have to pay a toll when you get off. You can only get to the reststop + restaurants and then back on. It’s exactly like the reststops with services on the Autobahns in Germany. If you need services like food or gas in the States you usually get thrown off into small towns and look for what you want. Also those Oases seem to be environmentally conscious. See the picture below.
After a bathroom stop I drove again. I missed the on-ramp to the freeway. There are two choices: 1) You could get mad about it or 2) Simple see it as a fun adventure and see what happens. I chose option 2. GPS realized it and re-routed to an on-ramp about 10 miles further west. It was fun. I got to drive through Illinois farmland on a small road. I love those little unexpected adventures. It makes everything much more interesting.
Ok I think I’ll take a little nap now. I’m feeling tired. Going to have dinner with the Smiths (Daniel & Kisha) tonight. Have to cancelled last time. Not good. I actually gave them a hard time about Mr. & Ms. Smith. Remember the movie? He He He.
About one more hour to go.
Zzzzzzz for me! :-)
Hey I’m back on the road again. The journey to home has officially begun. I thought I’ll sleep a bit longer, but woke up at 8am. I lounged half asleep in bed a bit longer than I should have. Eventually I got up and got myself ready. Then the fun of packing started. My suitcase was in serious distress. All this digging around looking for clothes made it look like a tornado went through. Everything had to come out and get repackaged. I don’t know it seems like it’s fuller than before. Had to open it’s widening belt. :-) Did I mention that it weighs a ton? Why is mine always the heaviest? Oh well the car doesn’t complain about it’s weight so it doesn’t matter. I’m the one who has to lift it up a mile though to get it into the back of the car. Fun! :-)
First stop was to get gas. It’s really interesting as soon as you are in a city where lots of people live, people are no longer honest. At the gas pump they ask you to enter your 5 digit billing zip code for your credit card. All the small towns I went through on my way to Chicago, none asked for that. Swipe your card and you are ready to pump gas.
After that you can guess where I had to go. Yes of course Starbucks! Got my usual morning drink except this time I got a comment about 8 pumps of vanilla in the grande version. Wow that is really sweet. I don’t know why, but I think it’s perfect. I need sugar and I can’t drink some unsweetened beverage. :-) You should see how much sugar I put in if I drink like a hot tea. LOL I also got a power protein plate like I did when the roadtrip began in CA. I love those things. This one had the original peanut butter package. You could actually pour it. But it’s not the healthy one they give you in CA. I wonder why they serve the new special healthy one in CA? I don’t think I need to explain. :-)
I have to say: Thank you so much Chicago. You provided an absolutely amazing experience and fun time. It could not have been any better. I really appreciate it. Definately have to go back there some day as there is so much more to see and I want to see the rest of the museums where I only saw a fraction of it.
I know everyone has been anxious to know more about my day at the museum. If you had nightmares or couldn’t sleep. I’m truly sorry. :) One thing I can tell for sure things didn’t come to live after nightfall. LOL. (If you don’t get the joke, watch the movie Night at the Museum).
Arrive at the museum and this thing is another monster. I somewhat expected it, because the website says it’s the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere. The guy at the ticket counter said it’s 14 acres. That’s I believe only the building. But I’d have to check up on that fact as I didn’t verify it. Again on three levels. It was 11am and I went into the coffee shop inside the museum. Apart from the coffee I also got some fruit. First meal of the day. At 11:40am I had tickets to see the movie Hubble. First I went to check out the old race cars. Basically had to run through. Then I had to rush back to the movie theater. Made it into the right building, they were already announcing last call for the show. The theater is IMAX, but it’s a bit different. It feels like you are laying in your seat. You couldn’t look down as it felt like you are going to fall down. I don’t have to tell you about the movie, it was superb! The official website is at http://imax.com/hubble. There is also a YouTube Trailer. The trailer falsely portrays that the movie is mostly about astronauts and the Hubble. But it’s about so much more.
Ok after the movie I couldn’t really talk as I was really moved and wowed. Looked around in the space exhibit (it’s right where the theater is). Couldn’t look at everything. It was very interesting. Then I had to go find the U-505 submarine exhibit. I had tickets to get a tour of the inside of the U-505. It’s the real submarine the US captured from the Germans during WWII. I was going to step into a piece of history. I have never been on a submarine so I knew it was going to be very interesting. The story about the submarine is like the U-579 Hollywood movie, but Hollywood made it much more dramatic than what happened in real life. Seeing it from the outside was really quite something. Then we went inside. The group was small around 20 people. 59 men lived on that submarine. They had two bathrooms, but the 2nd one was all filled up with food so they had to really eat themselves through to have a 2nd bathroom. They never showered (you can’t). That for 90 days. Can you imagine 59 guys and no shower for 90 days? They must have smelled like roses. :-) I tell you it is really tight and small in there. You really had to be careful you didn’t bump your head somewhere. What I really liked I could read everything. Everything was labeled in German (Surprise, it’s a German submarine ha ha ha). I even became the translator as they played some tapes on how they got the torpedoes ready. The entire conversation was in German. The tour guide asked if someone spoke German and obviously it was only me. That was kinda embarrassing. After that you walked to the control room. Past the kitchen which was so tiny. 59 people had to be fed, 3 times a day. Amazing. The control room was interesting. Lots of stories. After that you went past the diesel engines. They played recordings on how only one (they had two) sounded on idle. It was loud. Imagine trying to sleep in that submarine. You could hear/feel the noise everywhere. That was pretty much all of it. I totally loved the tour. There were so many more items to see at that exhibit.
After that I had to rush back to the theater and watch at 2:10pm the Ultimate Wave movie. Nothing to report there. There was no need to see it. I thought it was a bit boring. Then I headed to the YOU exhibit. I wasn’t impressed with the giant 3D heart which is supposed to beat to your heartbeat. I didn’t really work very well. The two things I thought were the best was the display for Happiness. I could identify myself with that. The other thing was the display of the growth of a human. From embryo to fetus. They were all real. It started at 28 days and ended at 37 weeks and 5 weeks. That was incredible. At 28 days it was so tiny. But it didn’t take very long and the fetus was still extremely small, but you had no problems making out the fingers and toes. The full-grown baby at 37 weeks was huge, compared to where it started off. It seemed like kids which were there really enjoyed that a lot. Parents were explaining to them that’s how you looked at one point.
I went over to the airplanes, but I had only 5 minutes left, before they kicked everybody out at 4pm. I can’t believe it, but it’s impossible to see everything in one day. There were so many things I completely missed. Yes I only saw a fraction of the museum.
Finally made it outside of the museum and I realized I’m really starving. The fruits were gone by then. :-) Eric wanted to see “The Bean” at Millennium Park. He was stunned. I tell you it’s completely different if you see it with your own eyes. Then it was time to look for a place to have dinner. Walked all the way to Magnificent Mile. Didn’t find anything and then I remembered that with Kisha the other day I walked by a Ralph Lauren restaurant (yeah there is restaurant too :-) I knew I looked at the food walking by and I thought it looked good. Found it and as it was rather early the restaurant was pretty empty. The service was excellent. The waiter was like a walking history book. He knew so much about Chicago. I had a split plate. Tagliatelle with lobster and a tomato sauce and jumbo scallops with a tomato-cucumber salad. That salad was really good! At the end the waiter gave each of us his Ralph Lauren business card. I have never gotten a business card from a waiter. I don’t know if it’s something usual to do in a Ralph Lauren restaurant or who knows why he gave it away. Never knew that a Ralph Lauren restaurant existed. :-)
Then it was back to the hotel and work was a mad house. I don’t know why, but there was so much stuff to do.
Today it’s time to leave Chicago and head on back home. I’m not planning to leave way early in the morning. My plan is to go back to Ankeny, IA. From there I’ll look for a little bit different route to make it back to CA. You don’t have to go back the same way you came.
That’s it for that story. Hope it was fun to read. I sure had an excellent day filled with lots of amazing surprises and experiences. Pictures will be made available some other time.
Back at the hotel. Wow that science museum is grand! They sure know how to build museums in Chicago. Only saw a fraction of the museum. I was moved by the Hubble movie. You have to see it yourself on this gigantic dome shaped screen. Here is something they believe there are at least a 100 billion galaxies out there each with billions of stars. Some galaxies cluster like cities together in large numbers. Our Milky Way galaxy is part of cluster of galaxies. But it’s a very small cluster compared to other larger clusters of galaxies. Remember each one contains billions of stars. Also I believe I have to check on that I really liked the Orion Nebulus pictures from Hubble. Today I find out they believe it’s a nursery where new stars and solar systems are born. No wonder I was so fascinated by those pictures. Our solar system might come from there too. It’s absolutely fascinating and stunning. So many other things. Already had dinner. I only had some fruits all day long. After the museum I was about to drop dead. I was starving. Ok now back to do some work. Hopefully I can write more about my day later.
Ok here is a quick recap of Saturday as well as pictures from that day. There are quite a few. I had to delete over half of them. I took way too many.
Instead of taking the cab we decided to try out the train system in Chicago. I love trains. It’s always fun trying to figure out where to go and what trains you should use etc to get where you want to go. Especially in a place where you have never been before. Of course you get to see all kinds of interesting characters, too. :)
We start to see all kinds of people dressed up in red and white clothes. Many had flags with them which said: Polska. That means Poland. We thought what’s going on? So I searched on Google and found out that Chicago is throwing a parade for me. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. No it was the Chicago Polish Constitution Day Parade. They almost wanted to cancel it due to the Polish President/Wife and his entourage killed in a plane crash on April 10th. So we watched the parade for a little while.
The plan was to go into the Aquarium first. The line to buy tickets was pretty long so we decided let’s go over to the Field Museum and get tickets there. You can also buy tickets for the Aquarium there. I figured if the line is shorter there, it’ll be easier to get in there later into the Aquarium as I already have tickets for it. Of course the line was a lot shorter at the Field Museum. Wow this Museum is gigantic. It has three levels. I think you could easily spend 2 weeks in there, if you want to read and study every exhibit which is there. The material and collections they have is unbelievable. We went to see the Mammoth Special Exhibit first. There was a great time lapse at the beginning. It started off with how things looked 1 day ago and then 2 days ago and then it got faster and faster. 100 years ago. The spot you stood on in Chicago really never changed. The whole scenery transformed completely though as the years passed by. It stopped once you hit 20,000 years ago. After that exhibit we had lunch. Then we went to check out the bugs world. It was fantastic. They tried to make you believe they are going to shrink you. Then you were inside the soil. The roots of plants were enormously big. They also had descriptions of what root belongs to which plant. You know all kinds of things. After that we checked out the DNA exhibit. Incredible stuff. After that we went through the Evolving Planet exhibit. It starts off at 4 billion years ago and goes to now. Wow this exhibit goes on and on and on forever. I think we spend an hour in there and we went pretty fast through as we didn’t have any time. You could easily spend an entire day just at that exhibit. So many things you can learn/read look at. It was really well done.
Then we went to the Aquarium. The line was even longer this time. I took a picture. It was a slow moving line. I would not be surprised if the people at the end of the line had to wait 2 hours to buy tickets. Everyone has questions about the tickets as there are so many options. We got in pretty quick as we could use the will call line which was very short. Smart move to get tickets somewhere else. :) The Aquarium is really cool. So many interesting creatures to look at. I don’t think I have ever seen such a variety. You could basically see marine life from every corner of the world. Probably my favorite part was watching the dolphins have fun. There was a huge window in the lower level which looked right into the pool where they perform a show. You could see exactly what it really looks like from underwater. There were two dolphins which always hang out with each other. They couldn’t let go of each other. It was so much fun to watch. But extremely hard to take pictures. I got a few of them. We stayed there until 6pm when they threw us out as they were closing at that time. I don’t think we saw everything.
After that we basically went to a Starbucks and had to sit down after walking around all day long. You all know the rest of the story what I did after Starbucks.
Enjoy the pictures. Most of them are from Saturday. The chocolate pictures are from Sunday. I didn’t really take any from the Magnificent Mile.
Today I’ll be checking out the The Museum of Science and Industry. I think I will have an amazing time there. I will have to start the day early. I found even more exhibits I want to check out. :-)
Well I don’t think I need to elaborate where I went for dinner tonight. I think everyone knows. If not, I went to Spacca Napoli again. Wow I love this place. I think it has the best pizza’s outside of Italy!
Guess what: The dough boy guy was there again. He recognized me. This time got some free high-end (according to him) Chianti. I don’t care what it is. I love the gesture. It’s incredible. I guess me telling him how fantastic the dough is, really made an impression.
Had pretty much the same stuff again except this time I had a Margarita Pizza and only the Antipasto. The rest of my menu plan stayed the same. Here are a couple pics to make your mouth water. :-) (Actually the pizzas look and taste much better than what the phone pictures show. The pizzas look like a dog shit on one of them and then they brought it out! LOL. Ohhhh I’m laughing so hard….
No dessert picture, that was gone before a picture could even be taken. (Didn’t want to bother you guys with cat poop :-) Ha ha ha.
Ok I’m in the middle of doing some work now. Going to the Magnificent Mile shopping area was good. For me not quite as much fun as going back in time or learning about things I didn’t know. But I didn’t get dragged into a shoe store. He He He. Actually I got a few cool things I liked for me for the summer. We also went into a Niketown store. This store was huge. It had three levels. It had one big problem. It was fricking hot in there. It was like a sauna. I don’t know if they turned up the heat so you could try out their shirts if they really stay dry in case you sweat a lot. Who knows. You could have run naked around in there and it would still have been hot. :-) Actually I think they had some issue with the A/C. Interestingly on the 3rd level (women section) it was cool. Only the men sections were hotter than blazes (Maybe because men are hotter ha ha ha). On the way back I walked by a chocolate store. Oh this store was so calling my name! They had so many different chocolates to choose from. It was an awesome place. Of course I couldn’t resist and get a few chocolates.
I have to say I enjoy shopping more with a guy. You don’t have to separate each other. And guy clothes just look cuter. Oh my now I’m in big trouble. Sorry! LOL
Ok that’s it for now. I have to continue working and finish all the stuff which has pilled up.