Road Trip 2017, Day 4

I’ll start with one picture from yesterday which I’d forgotten about, a picture from the inside of the Valparaiso University Chapel where I spent untold numbers of hours practicing the organ and playing for services during my two years there. This is the front of the chapel (an enormous room seating 3,000 people when filled to capacity), a view I am intimately familiar with from my years in the organ loft at the back! Of course, this is taken from about half-way down the room, so it’s a lot closer than I’m used to 🙂

That shell rather gets in the way; they were set up for some kind of orchestra concert, so you can’t see a lot of what’s up front.

This morning, I drove from my hotel in Michigan City into The Loop (downtown Chicago, for those of you not familiar with local terminology). Along the way, I got stuck in a toll plaza – the darn thing wouldn’t read my transponder! It took several minutes to get someone to come help me, and she said that the equipment they have just goes belly-up every now and then and needs a good kick. Then it seemed that every route I wanted to take to the lakefront had closed streets (there was a Taste of Chicago festival on top of loads of construction) so I ended up with a very circuitous route that took me through some beautiful neighborhoods I’d never seen before.

Once there, I walked around for a couple of hours but really didn’t do much of anything. It was just good to get exercise and see the city again. I did take a few pictures so that you’d know I was really there:

Then it was time to head west to Freeport, my stop for the night. I opted to have the GPS avoid highways, and was impressed once again with just how LARGE Chicago is. I drove for an hour and a half before I felt I was finally getting into the countryside.

Now I can’t prove this next statement, and I’m sure you will insist I was dreaming, but at one point along a country road, I saw a most unusual creature. It was not much bigger than a mouse, but with longer back legs. It was running across the road ON TWO LEGS. Its shorter front legs, held up in the air, made it look like a fuzzy brown miniature T-Rex. Strange, but true!

I do have more videos from yesterday’s and today’s drives, but I think I’ll wait until near the end of the trip and post a bunch of links all at once in case anyone cares 🙂