Christina and Robert's Cross-Country Trip: Part 5, Illinois & Wisconsin
Friday night 7/3 the four of us went over to Jen and Joe's house, which is lovely and full of old wooden things. Jennifer made a wonderful dinner for us to celebrate our marriage in Chicago (this is the never-ending wedding!) and Chris, Aurora, and her friend joined us for dinner along with Judy and Bill, who had driven up to see us for the weekend.
Jennifer made a kind of honeymoon suite on the third floor of the house for us, complete with peach roses and candles. On Saturday Judy, Jennifer and I took a long walk around a park near them. Bill and Robert were walking too, but they were so far ahead that we just talked together and had a good time without them. Dave and Candy came over midday to work some more on the radio--which was a lot more troublesome than Dave had anticipated!--eat ice cream and say good-bye, and Chris and Aurora had gone home to Urbana the night before. That night, Fourth of July, Joe and Jen and Robert and I went to the fireworks in a small suburb where Joe's relatives live. We were so close that our blanket was full of soot and small pieces of ashy cardboard from the fireworks when we stood up to leave. Sunday 7/5 we went into Chinatown for dim sum with Judy and Bill and Jen and Joe. We had to wait an hour, but it was a really nice dim sum--Bill belongs to the same school of dim sum ordering as Aunts Mary and Grace, the "don't let anything--anything!--escape you" school, so we had lots of stuff we don't normally get.
Then we left Chicago and drove to Wisconsin. In the Wisconsin Dells we spent $20 at Big Chief and each got to go on 2 go-carts and a roller coaster ("finding" an extra token helped). The coaster was one of those neat wooden ones, and the go-carts were amazing--huge bridges, tunnels under water, spirals like parking garages, and super fast. I beat Robert both times even though we pulled up together and took off at the same time. That is not just the luck of getting a fast car--once I started 3rd to last out of 30 cars and finished 6th to the front overall! Also in the Dells I bought a pair of moccasins that Robert makes fun of me for wearing, but that Uncle Don would probably like.
Then we drove to Wisconsin Rapids and saw my cousins Carl and Cindy and Craig and Corey. We visited at their house in the evening, in the backyard with a fire and marshmallows, and then they treated us to a motel room nearby for the night. On Monday we all met early and we took everyone out to breakfast, and then we went out on their boat, fishing. Robert was the only one who caught a fish, a sunfish, though.
