kitchtrips

Carolina north and south, Alabama to Chi town
Dakota Badlands, the heart of the heartlands
Way up above Dixie, Boston, Jersey, New York City
Spokane to Denver, across the plains
Hills of Virginia, coast of Maine

I’ve rolled a lot of miles just to feel your smile
Girl I wanna touch you while I kiss your lipstick
‘Round the bend, down the road
I’m in, out of the cold
Itching to get my fix and kiss your lipstick

– Kip Moore

Friday 2 September

How about those Sydney Swans? Decisive win against Melbourne in Melbourne – what a way to start what was a fun Friday.

I was awake for the last two minutes of the game, not that we have the right channel to watch here, but I managed to catch up on the big highlights, and am looking forward to a home prelim final in two weeks’ time. I see no reason why the Swans can’t win it all from here. Hopefully, me not watching the game to psyche them out will also help for the Wallabies overnight tonight.

Short walk around the streets this morning, as we had to be out the front door at 9am for the drive over to Herrick Lake. We would have arrived a lot earlier than we ended up, had it not been for the goods train that decided to pass through Wheaton just as we were about to negotiate the level crossing. It’s crazy that there’s literally only one bridge in town that goes over the railroad. So you take your chances. Sometimes it’s a short Metra commuter train, other times – like this morning – it’s a long goods train.

We met Jamie, Connor and Nolan at Herrick Lake, and saw Debbie as well, who was out walking in the trails that branch away from the lakefront with a friend. We ended up walking about a mile around the lake with Jamie pushing Connor and Nolan in a pretty heavy-duty stroller, then went down to the water to throw rocks and sticks and anything else the boys could find to launch into the lake. We saw a couple of tortoises in the water, which was cool to see.

Connor did a couple of drawings for us, including one that told us that he loved us funny talkers. I guess our fame precedes us? (Jimin is Connor’s favourite from a K-pop band he likes)

Jamie and the kids headed off to Connor’s tumbling classes and we went by Mariano’s grocery store to get some supplies for the house.

In the early afternoon, we went over to the Allan and Mackenzie’s house for dinner. Emery is growing very quickly, and we got to meet little Everly, who has had a tough first fifteen months of her life. After many years of seeing Gia Mia Pizza magnets on the fridges of so many people here, we finally actually ate the pizza, and it was very good. Thin crust, like what we have in Australia (as opposed to the Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s deep dish that is a tradition here in Chicago) and pretty healthy, at least as far as pizza goes. Like with everyone else we’ve seen over the last few weeks, we had plenty to catch up on.

After dinner, Allan, Nathan and I drove around to Bryan’s house to meet Mike and Bryan for the Indiana/Illinois football game, which we watched on his outdoor TV on a perfectly warm evening, with beer, tortilla chips, guacamole and salsa dip.

Bryan, who was with us at the Sox game on Tuesday night, is an Illinois graduate, which made things interesting because Mike graduated from Indiana. It’s a pretty big rivalry here in the Midwest, and whilst the game wasn’t exactly chock-full of offensive fireworks, there was a game-winning drive for Indiana, scoring a touchdown with twenty-two seconds left. The reactions of both Mike and Bryan at differing times during the game was very amusing.

There was plenty more football on the TV and we actually didn’t end up leaving Bryan’s until after midnight. By the time we dropped Allan home and got back to the Airbnb, it was nearly one o’clock, so it was straight to bed (I am writing this blog Saturday morning) ahead of a big Saturday.