Joan on the Road

We returned from Illinois on Monday evening after a fun, relaxing and uneventful trip to Illinois. Tom and Renee were wonderful companions. I did not have to do a thing!!! I could have managed the flight and ground transportation on my own...I've done it before, but it was wonderful to have them taking care of me.

We had a lot of laughs over Tom's GPS guide named Susan. I think he has a TomTom GPS. For the most part Susan was correct in her guidance but every now and then we had to rely on Joan, who actually lived in the area. I can see that GPS systems have vastly improved since we first looked at them. It would be really handy to have Susan tell me which lane we should be in on the freeway to exit. There's nothing like finding that you need to be in the left lane to exit when you are driving the 60' MH rig!

I'm sorry that I didn't have enough time to visit with family and friends in the area. Rich, Chris, Georgia, Butch, Maryann, Manooch, my cousins....we'll catch you next year. I did manage a quick morning coffee with a couple of my "goil" griends. Mostly I was there to hang out with Mom and Dad. It had been over a year and I was so happy to find them doing pretty well. We got in lots of hugs and kisses to fill up our bank.

We were lucky to be in Illinois during lovely fall colors so we took a short trip driving backroads to take in the eye candy and smell the burning leaves. Memories of October. Of course, we had to drive far enough to get some genuine Wisconsin frozen custard at Leon's on Milwaukee. We also hit the CJ Banks store in Racing where Renee and I dropped a few bucks and exited as happy shoppers. I also introduced Renee and Tom to Culver's where you can feast on Butterburgers....yes, fried in butter!

I so, so glad I could make this trip. Jim had no problems at home and we had none on the road. I was very impressed traveling on Southwest Airlines. Man, they do move quickly. We also had a couple of days of great fall weather. So Life Is Good!