I have returned from the great white north. Though a day rarely goes by around here that someone isn't complaining about the weather in some way or about the length of our winter. It seems that we don't really have a spring anymore. The weather here turns from a frosty few days of bearable low temps to intense raging heat. Here it is, June, and we've already had a few days of blistering inferno heat. Well, not so for our friends up north. While I packed for a semi-warm trip with an occasional dip in the night air temps to require a jacket. I had no idea I needed to pack my winter gear. It got cold. On my return trip home, as soon as I crossed that Indiana-Illinois border, the weather was back to what it was before I left. Crazy.
It was a good time during the whole weekend. It wore on my patience a little, with it raining constantly. Finally, it broke loose with a downpour on the way back through Chicago. The drag race on Friday was okay, I guess. I've found that I really enjoy the sport of drag racing, but I just can't stand going to the races. Too many people acting like complete fools. At this drag race in Joliet, there were more people drinking than I had seen at any race in my lifetime. They were serving beer and hard liquor everywhere you looked on the grounds of the track. I left early. I didn't want to share the road with a bunch of drunks when the race let out. Funny, the "drunk test" I saw one vendor giving to a guy was "how many fingers am I holding up?" The staggering drunk man looked and lost balance several times as he thought about it. He gave the vendor another look like he was crazy and then he said "Well, FIVE!" Then he proceeded to talk about the five fingers and having to do the drunk test in the first place. The vendor told him he passed the test, he better shut up if he wanted the beer. So he did.
The car show in Madison, WI was a little ho-hum. Nothing really great to see. A few ideas I hadn't seen before. I'll have to tuck those away back in my mind for my imaginary car that never materializes. The rain kept a damper on things. I stayed as long as I could until the smell was in the air signaling the hard rain was about to come. As soon as I got back to my car and was on my way, lost through town, the rain started coming down hard. Did I say lost? Yes, I got lost by taking the wrong turn out of the Alliant Center. It was a nice little drive along the lake until I realized my folly. Then when I found my way, I saw how ridiculous it was that I missed the correct turn on my way out.
Anyway, back on the highway towards Milwaukee and down to Kenosha. I had been through here before for the same car show a few years ago. Seems when I was in Kenosha I chose to stay in the next exit down from the main town area, but I couldn't remember why. Then it dawned on me. That area is like the ghetto side of town or something. The next exit down only had the one hotel, but it was real nice. This was my most expensive hotel on the trip, so far. I figured it would be the nicer of the few. My previous stay was nice, I remember. But for the price I thought it would really be memorable. Nope. First try at my room was the first one next to the elevator. Traveller's tip, if you book through the cheapest possible way, i.e. hotels.com, etc, then they will usually give you the room(s) they don't usually sell. Leave all the "good" rooms to the full-rate paying guests. I didn't book online, I walked up and paid full, so no way was I going to get stuck with this room. I complained and they gave me the next crappiest room, the one at the far end of the hall next to the stairs. I didn't care, as long as I was away from the elevator. No wait! This room, in this non-smoking hotel, reeked of cigarrette smoke. It bothered me a little but I was too tired to worry about the smell. I did make a big stink about it, in a quiet manner, at the desk several times. I wanted to be sure they knew I wasn't the one who smoked it up. I wasn't going to get charged a $250 cleaning fee for someone else's smoke. All my quiet, mannerly complaing got me $30 knocked off the rate, so good deal. Still didn't like it, though.
Found out later on my bill they had me listed as someone else. Another Kevin Bryant, who DID book his room through hotels.com. I guess that's why I got the runaround? So, out on the road and back towards home. My planned early start was delayed just a bit. I got going around 8:00. I drove down through northern Illinois, through Highland Park, Glencoe, Evanston, Winnetka. I wanted to do the "Ferris Bueller" tour. A drive by all the places where the movie was filmed. Also, I checked out filming locations for Weird Science, Uncle Buck and Sixteen Candles. It was more of a John Hughes tour than a Ferris tour, I suppose. Cameron Frye's house is up for sale and I was hoping for maybe an open house, if I was so lucky. No dice. I drove by and checked it out anyway. Not much of a house for 2.3 million, but it's probably a lot nicer than it looks. There were lots of cool houses for sale in Highland Park, where Cameron's house is.
I went down to the beach wall shown in Ferris Bueller. It would've been real cool if it hadn't been raining. Probably a lot more crowded too. But, being a raining, misty morning, it was just a quiet overlook onto the beach. Actually, it was unbelievably quiet. Almost pastoral, if it hadn't been so close to a big city. The park nearby smelled of a certain sweetness which made the quiet seem all that much softer. The rest of the trip I hit all the places from the other movies. The high point, besides Cameron's house, was probably Uncle Buck's house. Or actually, his brother's house in the movie. It's a beautifully plain house. White siding and perfect lawn. Nothing spectacular, but just looked like it was very well kept. That was the last stop on the movie tour. Headed for home after Buck's house.
