This morning, on nytimes.com, I saw a link to an article which is being updated all day today, as the journalist liveblogs Thanksgiving. I thought liveblogging was corny before (mostly because I am picky about which internet/blogging trends I fall for), but now liveblogging has gone too far. To out corny them (because that’s what we’re about here at Wanderful, corny), I’m going to take it one step further and liveblog MY THANKSGIVING! But not like that, no - see, I always wanted to keep a list of all the things I am thankful for on Thanksgiving, but I usually forget or fall asleep for most of the afternoon. This year, whenever something comes to mind that I am thankful for, I’m going to liveblog it right here on Wanderful. Perhaps this isn’t really liveblogging - I think liveblogging is supposed to have something to do with following your own or someone else’s actions for a day. I don’t care, I’m liveblogging my thoughts, that’s what I’m liveblogging. Here we go:
I am thankful for…
9:13PM
Wine.

9:00PM
THE DINNER WE JUST ATE!
 

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Let’s get us some equal rights, dammit.

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Three years ago our friend Brian went on a one month road trip across America. When he got back to New Jersey we invited him over to share his tales from the road, and that he did - He told us about a hundred stories that night and showed us even more photos. What I remember most from his stories:
-A photo of him jumping on what looked to be the edge of a cliff in the Grand Canyon
-A story where he attended a powwow with some weird hippie dude who ran a hostel he stayed at
-A photo of him holding a cougar cub as big as your average cat.
-And when he proclaimed “Portland is a cool city. It’s like a city made up of a bunch of rejects from other cities and they’re all just living and doing things and wahwahhaahahaa…” and he kept going on in his Brian language and using hand motions I don’t always understand.

Brian has a lot of time to go in his head and think and come back with well thought-out opinions on just about everything in life. Then he tells me “hey Katie, go see this movie, it is good.” and I go see it and hey, it’s good! So I trust Brian’s opinion most of the time and feel quite inspired by him after we hang out (which doesn’t happen often enough these days). So of course after hearing all about his road trip I realized that a road trip was probably the thing for me.

Brian’s definition of Portland sounded great! And on our long list of things to do and places to see, Portland was first on my list. As the road trip neared, I realized I was growing out of Montclair and maybe it was time to find a new place to live. So the search began: I would love to live in New York City but I refuse to live in the semi-affordable Brooklyn and I don’t believe I’ve got the money or balls to make it in Manhattan. Boston is too Boston (it’s the only way to describe it, go there and see for yourself), Chicago is cool and all but it’s too cold (actually it was really warm when we were there, I just hear about the cold), Cleveland is bleeeaaahhhghhhhh, Milwaukee is too drunk and iPhone droppy (well, for me it was), and Minneapolis is just too cool for us losers. Perhaps, I thought, I am one of those other-city rejects who would fit right in, in Portland, Oregon.

Hopes were high when we drove into the city almost two weeks ago.

“Holy crap Mark! Are those purple mountains….majesty??” So I looked up the lyrics and then tried to figure out where the purple mountains mentioned in the song are located. I still am not sure. These looked purple to me.

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If I were to ask you who has worse gas, Mark or myself, who would you choose?

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Thanks to Waterslidegate last Thursday, Mark and I had to spend the whole day attempting to defuse the situation and missed out on a quick trip to Minneapolis. We were going to head in there around 1pm, stay until 8 or so and then get on the road to the Badlands. But of course that didn’t happen…

Instead we camped out that evening at some blaaah KOA, twenty miles outside of the city and watched the vice presidential debate online, we also ate Thai food and Chipwiches so it turned out to be a good night. The next day we woke up late as always. Mark thinks it has something to do with the T@b because we can never seem to get up earlier than 9:30, and most of the time it’s after 10. We blame you Wanda the T@b, for being too comfortable. Check out was at 12pm so of course we were late doing that as well and eventually we were on the road and looking for some breakfast.

So this is where it begins: Eggs benedict (with no meat, thank you) is my favorite food, EVER. We began this road trip on September 1st, it was October 3rd and I hadn’t come across any eggs benedict on the trip thus far. Mark found a Chowhound review on some eggs benedict meals in Minneapolis and everyone seemed to love Al’s tart and lemony hollaindaise sauce over at Al’s restaurant. Looking at the review on my iPhone my mouth began to water “TO AL’S WE GO!” Oh no! Al’s closes in 20 minutes! So I called ahead - “Aaaaalll’s Breakfast!” said the guy on the other end.
“Hi, what time do you guys close?”
“1pm but if you’re on line by 1 you will get food.”
“A line?”
“Yes. A line.”
“Do you have eggs benedict?”
“Yes best eggs bene in town. See you soon, Katie.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Al’s knows all.”
We somehow arrived at Al’s before 1pm. I think because the fear of me whining all day if I didn’t get those eggs bene fueled Mark to drive like I’ve never seen him drive before. We made it past twenty minutes of traffic lights in five minutes, WITH Wanda in tow. I didn’t even have to help him find Al’s “THERE IT IS GET OUT GETOUTGETOUT!” He opened the passenger door and shoved me out. Leaving me in his dust. Would I ever see him again?

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Our friend Kate said she would punch both Katie and me in the face if we didn’t visit the homes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway.  Let’s schedule that punch on, say, Christmas day?  Let’s see if you have the cold heart to assualt me on Christmas, Kate.  I remember seeing Hemingway’s house in Key West about 10 years ago.  There were hunting trophies mounted everywhere.  I would have liked to see his birthplace near Chicago, but I don’t think Hemingway wrote any stories about Oak Park, Illinois.  That place couldn’t have been terribly inspiring.  As for Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, I’m sure they are amazing but I can’t afford $12 for admission.

Chicago is demanding!  It didn’t give us time to go about as we pleased.  A word of advice for tourists:  Chicago will open up a few possibilities for you.  You must take advantage of those prospects whether they are on your itinerary or not.  Our weekend in the city went by in a flash — intoxicating in its exhilaration, but over much too quickly. This is a cool building in the Lincoln Park area.

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Today was going to be the day to enjoy a slice of pizza Chicago-style.  I was going to make Amanda proud.  But instead we stuffed ourselves with Thai food from The Thai Bowl on N. Lincoln Ave.  After a heaping bowl of Red Curry, I couldn’t imagine that I would be able to savor a foot-long, thick-crusted calorie triangle the way it’s meant to be relished.  I did have a Coke in a glass bottle, though, which is Amanda’s number one preferred method for knocking back a Coke.  Tomorrow = Pizza.

Tomorrow = a lot of things.  Hopefully.  I want to take in the architectural tour of Chicago, maybe peek into Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, take a walk along the coast by Navy Pier, see the mirrored bean in Millennium Park (who could pass that up?), and take Mister to one of the many dog-friendly stores for a Mister-makeover.  What did we do today?  Aside from the Thai food I already told you about we drove around looking at buildings and people, then walked for a few miles and chatted with a few nice folks.  So many people were out on the streets tonight, most of them dressed to party.  Sidewalks vibrated from high-healed women walking past clubs roaring with music. The spirit of the city tonight caught us off guard — we were giggling for hours.

Not all news is good.  You see, about a week ago my Aunt Kathy wrote down my cousin Lisa’s phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to me.  Lisa lives in the Chicago area and we were hoping to stay with her.  I’m the kind of guy who loses everything that’s important to me, so I don’t need to tell you that the paper with Lisa’s address vanished into thin air.  This must have happened about the time that my cell phone battery died, taking with it the stored numbers of all my contacts.  The loss of these things screwed us:  We had to stay in an unnervingly dubious campground 70 miles from the city, then drive through horrendous local traffic for hours each way just to get to the city.  The traffic wasn’t so terrible in Chicago, but the streets by the campground were unexpectedly congested.  On both days of this hellish commute, my nerves were shot by the time we got to the city.  Lisa, I’m sorry I lost your address and phone number.  If you read this tonight contact me, there’s still time!

Tonight we’re camping on the street in front of Alex’s house.  She lives just a few miles from the city, where she works for the Chicago branch of Apartment Therapy.  Before we even met in person Alex agreed to let us park in front of her house, took it upon herself to get a parking pass from the town so we wouldn’t get towed, and offered to make us a vegetarian meal.  Have you ever known a person so kind?  If you have known one, you’re a lucky individual.  I can’t write much more tonight because it’s 2:45 a.m. and I want to wake up before 8 to get into the city early.  There’s plenty more to see.

Goodnight!

Today we:
-Met a juggler who works at an antique store.
-Visited a bunch of stores with items we can’t afford.
-Ate delicious vegetarian food at the Chicago Diner.
-Peeked into apartments along N. Halsted Street.
-Got amazing free chocolate samples at Ethel’s, then got suckered into buying a hot chocolate that was just okay.
-Spent two hours looking at travel books in Borders and cursing ourselves for not being as adventurous as we hoped.

Mister gets to come with us tomorrow!  Chicago is our favorite city of the road trip so far.

Hot sun blazed through the jeep windows as we drove northward yesterday afternoon. Air conditioning is very touchy in that stinky jeep — the vents refuse to blow cool air if the vehicle goes faster than 59 miles per hour. To make things more complicated, I’m so worried about maintaining reasonable gas mileage that I refuse to roll down the windows on highways because of wind resistance. Needless to say, Katie and I were feeling sick, sticky, and sweaty when I pulled off into Kankakee to stretch my legs for a bit. What was meant to be a five minute pit stop problematically escalated into a ninety minute excursion themed “squander your entire day.”

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That’s what I sang as we drove past the Illinois state sign this weekend. It actually made Mark laugh, he only laughs at one out of every twenty songs I come up with so I thought I should share it with you. The ’s’ is silent of course.

As you read in Mark’s Sunday post, we’re in Illinois visiting his family. Everyday I think “Oh no, what am I going to write about to make the readers think this is the most exciting time of my life?” You see, I imagined that by this point of the trip we would have mountain climbing, horseback riding, finding hidden waterfalls where we camp for days, and discovering delicious restaurants in cities we never visited before, all under our belts. Sure, we have found some good restaurants (Cleveland was surprisingly delicious) but we haven’t done much of the other romanticized road trip activities. Well, we haven’t done those yet, but believe me, if mountain climbing, horse back riding and waterfall camping do not happen on this trip, I’ll continue road tripping until it does. So far it’s been a drive through Amish country, a drive through RV country (apparently lots of RVs are built in Indiana) and a visit to Mark’s family (both sides of his family, to be exact). All of these destinations were planned out before we ever left Montclair, and have forced us to rush past peach orchards, winery tours, and Saugatuck, Michigan to arrive on time. Well, we’re left Monticello, Illinois and Mark’s family this afternoon and we’re headed towards Chicago, but believe me when I say that hanging out with Mark’s family beats waterfall camping any time!!! I mean, really, how could we sleep with a loud waterfall crashing down behind us anyway? I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe we’ll just opt for a day trip to a secluded waterfall we stumble upon after throwing Samantha out the window and getting lost (Just kidding Samantha, I love you and need you).

I believe Mark told you about our first day or two here in Monticello. In my story, we open after a night of sleeping at Uncle Lee’s country house. Originally we were to stay in the ‘Little House’ over at Aunt Louise and Uncle Larry’s, but the basement flooded (come on rain, leave Illinois alone already) and we moved to higher ground. We slept in the T@b and it felt pretty damn awesome waking up with a red barn and horses in the background the next morning.

This is Rosco, a handsome mutt with his own super large dog run, shed/house and pool. Before we met I heard he was a huge dog who would eat Mister. It turns out he’s not as huge as that other Rosco I know, and is as sweet as his twin Lennon (Kate’s dog).

I think they might have been Mules. That white one and one of those brown guys are in love, and it’s also a little creepy because the white one is so small, she’s got to be too young for him. But a couple of serious cuties nonetheless.

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