EXCITING FACT #1: The Ramblin’ Bauers will be living in Colorado for the next three months!
EXCITING FACT #2: A half-way trip to visit friends in Chicago is in the plan!
EXCITING FACT #3: The cats are finally able to go with us!
You may be asking, “How do you take two cats across the country on a 24 hour drive?” When we left WV for our 4 day trip to Colorado, that was on our minds too. Here is what we came up with :
It is a large pet carrier opening up to pod-like litter box, all of which is surrounded by sheer fabric. The spoiled little brats took up 2/3 of the backseat, which meant a tight packing job for our three months worth of clothing (to suit two seasons), climbing and camping gear, cat care items, and miscellaneous supplies. By the time that we were finished a gnat could not have sneezed in there, but we were sure that the cats would have the most comfortable cross country trip possible.
Things seemed to be going well until an hour into the trip, which was apparently Bella’s threshold. She began wailing, Fyodor became agitated and started biting her, and all manner of insanity broke out. So plan B came into effect. One quick stop at the vet’s and a $12 bottle of what I like to call “Cativan” later had us back on track to Chicago! The rest of the day, Fyodor (who hadn’t required drugs to reach his optimum chill) laid in his bed and Bella (who had required the maximum dose of Cativan to achieve a mild level of anxiety) was hiding in the litter box. Odd choice, but to each their own.
It was in this fashion that we drove 9 hours, took an accidental and painful detour through the dismal Gary, Indiana (the armpit of Chicago), and finally arrived at our friends’ apartment outside of Chicago! We were greeted by The Dream himself and spent the evening playing games while his wife, Nurse Ratchet, finished up her night shift at the hospital.
The next morning we ate some lovely muffins made by Nurse Ratchet and took the train in to the city for some fun, fun, fun!
There wasn’t much time to gawk because we had to grab some lunch and catch our next train. Are you familiar with the SNL skit “Cheezborger, Cheezborger, Cheezborger”? We ate at the restaurant on which it was based, Billy Goat! We were greeted by an enthusiastic foreign man who spoke very quickly and somehow decided that your order was the triple cheeseburger special. He yelled the famous line to the cashier and cooks, everything happened very fast, and then you found yourself carrying a very large, very greasy cheeseburger to your table. The atmosphere was crazy, the food was average, and the experience was classic!
With heavy bellies we just made the train to the Museum of Science and Industry, the main attraction of our day. When we got off of the train it became obvious that Lolapalooza was in full force! If the crowds weren’t enough to tip you off, you could rely on the rockin’ music, tents, and hyped up teenagers. I’ll tell you more about those crazy kids later, but first you need to hear about Mission Funducational!
(There’s the museum and Nurse Ratchet chasing away the pigeons.)
NR and The Dream tried to read each other’s emotions…
Avalanches spun, lightening struck, a vortex swirled…
And we saw the Bodies exhibit (it was AWESOME and decidedly everyone’s favorite)!
By the time we finished eating the sun had set and the city lit up! Look at those lovely couples posing by the river!
The most interesting sites seen on the way back to the train station were a painting of flying men in dresses (not angels because the wings are tied to their arms), a bakery likely owned in secret by our friend, and a room in the train station where the Untouchables was filmed (see Bilbo’s imitation). It is important to note that a scene from the Wedding Date was also filmed in this room, which means Patrick Dempsey was there (that’s what NR and I were interested in).
By the time all of this fun had occurred, it was quite late and the explorers decided to go home. We boarded the train and found two seats facing each other and settled into conversation. The seat across from us was soon taken by two elderly ladies and an elderly man. They told us that they had been to a play and asked if we had been to “Lola”, which brings us back to those crazy Lolapalooza kids. The train, which happened to be the last of the night, began to fill with dozens of drunk, high, or dually affected teenagers on their way home from the festival. It didn’t take long for the general atmosphere to become excited as they reminisced over their spectacular day. When finally we reached our terminal two notable things had happened: a boy had performed some rendition of some song involving what looked like rain dancing while banging things with his shoe, taking pauses to eat pizza, and we had realized that we had more in common with the seventy-something group sitting next to us than we did with teenagers. We even joined into the “kids these days” conversation.
The morning was uneventful as we slept as late as possible and everyone rushed to get ready for their various obligations. When we bid our friends goodbye, the skies were turning dark and the rains were beginning to fall. To be honest, I was not sad to see the rain. Bilbo and I had experienced terrible allergies while in Chicago…my eyes were even swollen shut when I woke up! Nurse Ratchet said that she had the same reaction when she first moved and that, on top of the pollution, the pollen count is actually very high there. On the way out of town we drove past a wet Soldier’s Field, then set our sites on Colorado.
Of course, CO was still 17 hours away, so we planned to stop half-way, in Grand Island, Nebraska. A couple hours outside of Grand Island, we made a pit stop to give the kitties water, use the restroom, and switch drivers. When I came back from the restroom, Bilbo told me to get in the car right away because we had to get out of there. I looked to our right to see a completely black sky, lightening, and blowing trees. What I didn’t see, but Bilbo did, was a funnel cloud forming in the distance. Thanks to accuweather.com, I looked up the storm warning, checked the path, and found that we could just keep going to avoid it. Bilbo drove for a very tense half hour before we saw sunny skies and a rainbow.
We were ready for a rest after that! We checked into the Motel 6 (a guaranteed pet friendly motel if you ever need one), brought the kitties in, and rested up for the last leg of our drive. In our next blog we’ll tell you about arriving in CO and our first week worth of adventures! Stayed tuned for some beautiful sites and fun stories!
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