Day 17

Starting Point: Chicago, IL
Ending Point: La Crosse, WI
Mileage: 445 km
Weather: Muggy all day no matter where we were.  Cloudy in Chicago, but clear skies through to La Crosse, where some thunder heads were rolling around.  Currently in La Crosse, it is 29C but feels like 41C.  Tomorrow, it is predicted to feel like 47C.  HOT.
Accommodations: Super 8

We can now cross Wrigley Field off of our bucket lists!  We joined about 40,000 other people at the famous ball park today for a mid-day Cubs vs. Marlins game.  It was exactly as wonderful as I expected it to be.  Very, very wonderful, in other words. The Cubs didn't play very well (final score 11-3 for the Marlins), but that didn't change how much fun we were having!  And we had the added advantage of getting to see Andre Dawson throw out the first pitch and then sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch! (We saw George Bell throw out the first pitch at the Jays game; good to see him too!)

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, we then got on the train with those same fans, all of us trying to squeeze through the tiny turn-stiles in the wee Addison station, the entrance to which is in a back alley one block away from Wrigley.  We almost witnessed a fist fight over line-jumping!  No end to the displays of local culture! In the end, we made it safely back to the hotel to collect our bags and our car and to hit the road again.

Once we got out of Chicago and through some construction (and some more tolls.... grrr), we finally got back to the kind of highway driving that is relaxing and easy.  We're still on the interstate, but there isn't a lot of traffic and what traffic there is drives properly.  And the second half of today's trip has revealed some beautiful scenery!

A big driving day tomorrow so we're hoping to get an early start.  We'll be able to listen to the final round of the British Open all the way through Minnesota and into South Dakota! Tomorrow is scheduled to be the longest of our driving days, over 1,000 km from start to finish.

One last Chicago story: We had breakfast this morning at the Original Pancake House. John had a Dutch Baby, which is basically a very large pancake shaped like a bowl, and instead of cooked on the griddle, it is baked for 20 minutes.  It had whipped butter, powdered sugar and lemon in it.  DELICIOUS!