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the chicago trip has finally come!
...and went, actually.
here's what was up.

friday night we (noel, danielle, sara, and myself.) left from ames to travel to somewhere, il. we stopped in marshalltown to pick up noel's brother, zach. which, didn't 'cause any delays, but a whole bunch of crammed adults in what auto-trader would call a "spacious back seat."

and darnit if i'm not tiny, i had to sit in the middle. it was a pretty easy fit for the first hour.. then the second.. then the third. my butt literally fell asleep. it was awful. but i'm not much to complain, and it really was the most optimal seating, so whatev. what are you gonna do, right?


so we got to wherever, il rather late, midnight:thirty or something like that. we discussed the next days plans and then went over when we were going to get up. fine fine.


but apparently i missed a text message that danielle sent me.
a crucial one.
one that said bring a towel.
bring some blankets.
yeah. so i slept on the floor with my hoodie covering me, and danielle so nicely let me use her towel after she used it the next morning. i was amused by the whole situation, but still rather uncomfortable. i should have bought a towel at walgreens on michigan ave. but didn't.

the next morning we were up by eight or so, and had to drive to aurora to get to the train station. we stopped at casey's for snacks, and then booked it to the train station which took a lot longer to find than expected.

we finally got to the station, bought our super-cheap $5 tickets, i bought the new GQ with Seth Rogen on it from a nice vendor guy, and we hit up the neighboring farmers market. only to notice that there was nothing of value. so we just went back and waited on our train instead.
i've discovered i really like riding trains. they're super fun, and i think, even more fun when you take danielle as she proceeded to not look behind her when she sat down and she fell abruptly. very humorous. but i digress. anyway, we had much fun on the train and many train like shenanigans as we took the BNSF to chicago.


we got off of the train, and walked up to jackson st., i believe. the city already was ready to go and we were ready to go with it. it was sure to be an amazing day.



so we started walking up and down the busy N michigan ave. i didn't want to get lost, or have everyone leave me (a fear i have thanks to my brother's joking attempts of randomly stopping to follow me...jerk.) so i made sure to walk hand in hand with danielle. plus, my hand was lonely. we gained a following of our perfumed trail, as our expedition gathered many mullety man-folk. or rather, mullety pre-man-folk.

on our way down, i alerted zach to a picture of a seemingly distant cousin he had on an advertisement. who knew friedl was a name of asian heritage?

we continued up and down the avenue and after a lengthy walk mostly-back, we hit up a free trolley and went to the planetarium. it was really neat, even though a little too "God didn't create a damn thing" for my liking. whatev, africa. so afterwards, we just chilled on the grassy area (after seeing our ..fourth? wedding for the day.) and we took a moment to relax.

the moment was spoiled though, as my dad had called while we were in the presentation and i checked my voicemail only to find, to my disheartening horror, that a family friend had lost the battle to cancer. she was my sister's second mother, and treated her just like she was her own child. a very sweet, selfless woman, who gave the world to everyone else without taking anything for herself. she wasn't very old, late 50s, i think, and the hole she left was so great that the trees themselves can feel the void in their fibrous hearts.
i take this all in on the voicemail and with a small whispered "oh no," i proceeded to fall apart in danielle's arms. it was so serene though, to look across lake michigan and feel the sadness like the waves themselves crashed upon me. i found out yesterday that while my sister's husband was in IHOP in one of the prayer rooms, at the exact time she died (not knowing she did), he had a vision of her jumping up and dancing with graceful pirouettes across the room. beautiful. the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. blessed be the name of the LORD.

my mood was perked shortly after as i felt the warmth of the arms of God taking a child of his own back into his arms.
that, and seeing a seagull. i named steven. steven seagull. i want to photoshop in a pony tail. he soon flew off, and then landed again to follow his ladybird, i lovingly called sandra. sandra was avoiding him, perhaps in effort to play hard to get, but i so wished to tell her that if she ran away too much, perhaps steven would give up pursuit. and he was a lovely bird, so i'm sure she wouldn't want that.
oh, sandra. here's hoping.



oh, yes, steven, and also a yacht.
a yacht with a helicopter on it.
what. the. crap. goodness. it sounds like a 1-up a first grader would do. "i want a helicopter." "i want a yacht." "yeah well.. i want... a helicopter.. ON A YACHT." turds. 'twas all rather silly, but it made me smile. and i do like smiling.

so we walked all the way around lake michigan to navy pier where we finally settled down to get some supper at capi's italian kitchen. which was VERY tasty. and they served alcohol! yay alcohol!


just kidding. that's a pink lemonade. but i did have a heineken. i think that was one of the few moments where i craved beer. so tasty, though. so tasty, in fact, that i could only drink half. i don't think i can ever finish a full beer unless i feel obligated. plus, it makes me extra sleepy. which, after walking the whole day was something i didn't need. but it was very, very tasty. and i dig the green bottle.


we were super silly by this point, mostly delirious as a cause of hunger and noel started just snapping photos left and right.
and during the laughter, a rare shot of noel (smiling, no less!) finally showed up.

more and more photos arrived and danielle and i spent a good chunk of time looking at what noel had taken and laughing about them. some were very silly.




one was supposed to be of us being a three-headed monster...
which really just turned into people leaning all over me.
i wouldn't have minded the leaning except that i had a sudden flashback on the fact that danielle hates everything that is good on earth. phil collins, beastie boys, beans, peanut butter... it made me not want her head near me.


tragic, danielle, tragic.
i proceeded to tell her of her folly, and then had to show her who was boss.

hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. sometimes that means tough love, sometimes it means licking someone in the face when you have lasagna-beer breath.











"hey.. give me that plate."









once again, i had to tell her that plates, were for food, not heads.

i then had to show her the business. i didn't want to, believe me. but it had to be done. some people just don't learn lessons. so i brough out the big guns this time. i think she learned her lesson.
















finally, dinner was done, and we walked all the way back to the train station to hopefully catch the 9:40 BNSF to aurora.
we missed it by six minutes.
so we then decided to have team sleep on noel's ever-so-comfy shoulders.
this mostly concluded our night, except there was another hour long train ride, and then a full out crashing on the floor in a very lovely team sleep. danielle and i used an air mattress this time, and i slept considerably better, but by normal standards, awful. and my knees were in excruciating pain from all the walking, but i pretty much kept that on the quiet. i hate inconveniencing other people, so i'd rather just be in pain and silent about it. i'm kind of stupid that way.

so we got back in the car and headed to noel and zach's parents house in... clinton, ia? or clinton, almost ia? or clinton, almost il? i'm not sure. either way, it was clinton.
their parents were very lovely, and i almost swear i've met them before. i haven't, but they have a forgotten familiarity. we watched some wii tennis and wii mario kart, listened to some wes guy do his amazing vocal impressions of real life sounds (seriously. he was amazing.) ate some very lovely strawberry shortcake, and had a delicious lunch. i nearly crashed on their wooden floor. i sat down and then...almost slept. there's something so comforting about wooden floors. anyway, we left their very warm and inviting house and (this could be backwards) headed to eagle point for some castle adventures.

this picture is proof that zach was on our trip, not just behind the camera. we all had a really great time, and it was fun getting to meet and know sara, and then to get to know noel and zach a little better. i think we should go back though, as we didn't get to really do anything in chicago.
we didn't see the sears tower. we didn't see the art institute. we didn't see the museum of modern art. we didn't see the aquarium or the lincoln park zoo. we really didn't see anything.
but we walked ten miles around chicago and learned more about each other and ourselves.
it was a good trip.
so come on. feel the illinoise.















love, Jeska. 1 comments