C and Sophie Hit the Road

   I needed to get out of town. It had been a rough couple of weeks and next month looked like it will also be pretty rough. C also needed to get out of town. We decided that what we needed was a long weekend. We needed to do something fun. We needed to be outside.
   Where were we going to go? We thought of flying to Chicago. It's not very far away and both of us had flown there before relatively inexpensively. We checked into flights. It may have been inexpensive once upon a time, but not now. We could go to Madison. It was only four hours away, right. Wrong, it was five hours and too far to drive. What about Duluth? Well, we could go there, but there was not a hotel room to be had for the weekend we wanted to go. That was out.
  I suggested Wausau. There were a few things to do there. It wasn't too far away. C and I could climb Rib Mountain. C looked at it and it didn't interest him. We could stay at the St. James Hotel in Red Wing and visit all the little towns on the Mississippi River. C thought maybe the river was too high and things would be flooded. I thought about suggesting Bismarck,but that would definitely be too far away.
   Time was growing short. We needed to pick a destination and do it fast. We needed to decide where we were going to stay. C finally decided that we would go to Chicago and we would drive there. Yes, it was a long drive, but C thought that if we took three or four breaks to stretch it would not be bad.
  C and I had mastered the art of the road trip a long time ago. The secret is to make the drive part of the vacation. We make sure we have plenty of good music to listen to, maybe a book that I can read to C as he drives, a travel mug of tea for me and my knitting. We have had many good conversations while driving somewhere.
   We decided that we would leave early Friday morning and get to Chicago in the afternoon. We would stay at a hotel close to the Botanic Garden and spend the rest of Friday there. Saturday we would go into Chicago. We could go to Navy Pier or maybe to Lincoln Park. We would find a church to attend on Sunday and then take our time getting home.
   C spent Thursday night packing for himself and he tried to pack for me too. I had to work all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. On Thursday night I got home to a frustrated C. He wanted to get all this packing done so he could go to bed early, but he was having some trouble. I packed my suitcase while he tried to get one laptop up and running so we would take it with us. Both of us got to bed a lot later than we wanted.
   When the alarm went off on Friday morning we both got up. If all went according to plan we would be on the road no later than six thirty. We both went to our respective bathrooms to clean up. I fed that cats, set up their supper in the timer feeder dishes and packed my last minute bathroom items. I put the things I wanted to take in a small travel purse. I put away the dishes that C had washed and gave Scamp his pill. Scamp was not happy about that and needed to be placated with a dish of cat milk. C was going to make an omelette with toast for breakfast and then we would head out.
   Time was moving fast. It was already close to six when C got out of the shower. We weren't going to be able to leave on time. We needed to change our plans. C got dressed and loaded the car up. I warmed up some tea to put in my travel mug. We would make a stop at White Castle for an egg sandwich with breakfast tater tots.
   We got out the door about half an hour later than we had hoped. We went to White Castle. Then C remembered that we needed gas. I had a bill that needed to be mailed. We mailed the bill and got the gas. We were about an hour late.
   We were on our way. We drove over the I-94 bridge and C played the song we always play when we start out on a car trip. We were officially on vacation. Goodbye troubles,goodbye stress.
   We drove through Wisconsin. The plan was to take a stretch break at Eau Claire. We missed it. In fact we missed all of stretch breaks until we got to Johnson Creek. C wanted to stop. We needed a break and a little lunch. I was nervous though. We stopped near an outlet mall and there was a store there that C likes a lot. C doesn't need more clothes. C promised that we would not go into that store. While we were eating we noticed a place that sold tennis shoes. C looked interested. He did need a new pair of walking shoes. We walked over there intending to see what there was and buy only if we saw something we really liked. C went over to the shoes and I looked at running pants. There wasn't much there. There were shorts and tights. The shorts were too short and the tights, well they were tights. I don't have the kind of body that should be encased in running tights.
   I meandered over to the shoes. I was drawn to a pair of purple running shoes. I already had a good pair of running shoes. I didn't need another pair,but I swear these purple shoes were literally calling my name. The salesman had finished with C and noticed my attention to the purple shoes. When I told him that I ran, he suggested something else. He brought out the something else and I tried them on. They were wonderful. I walked around in the them. Sold. I was looking forward to taking them out for a test spin.
  We walked out of the store happy with our purchases and running a little behind schedule. C realized that he had our destination wrong and we were actually closer that we thought. Even with the late start and the unexpected shoe buying trip we would only be about an hour late getting to our hotel. We got into the car and headed off. We were on the home stretch. Chicago, here we come!
   We got to our hotel after a light misdirection by the GPS. C went inside to check in. He came out. There were two hotels by the same name on the same street. Ours was down the street and closer to the Botanic Garden. We drove to the right one.
   We got to our room and opened the door. I was about as pleased as I could be. There was a couch with a nearby light where I could sit and knit. There was a desk where I could put the laptop so I could write. There was a small coffeepot near the sink where I could make some tea for myself in the morning. Outside was a courtyard with some outdoor furniture where we could sit if we had time. It was wonderful. The bed was large and looked comfortable. It was going to be a very good weekend.