Chicago or Bust

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The weekend trip had been quite amusing, in all respects. In began quietly enough, as most trips will… the usual chats and passing of the snacks and drinks from the coolers, the moms conversing with Grandma in the front two seats while Aunt Petunia crocheted and Mom swerved occasionally to avoid a butterfly crossing the highway, as she usually did. The second bench seat had been taken out to house the luggage. The third seat was occupied by Eve, Carrie, and Elizabeth, (respectively, left to right facing the front), and the fourth seat by Collette, Rose, and St. Lucia, respectively. Each had an iPod or CD player to entertain them for the four and a half hours on the road that afternoon. And toward their pull into Chicago, Carrie and Eve began discussing such topics as the Bermuda Triangle, the theory of relativity, creation and atomic ticks, etc…

Earlier, Mom had been telling Collette how Joe had purchased indigo blue glow sticks to attach under his helmet and on his bike for the Moonlight Ramble bike ride in Forest Park. They found out later that Joe did very well and that the bike ride was nearly fifteen miles in length. Joe did not return home till 3:30 that next morning and subsequently slept right through church.

Meanwhile, back in the big green slug, the girls sat around with their music, pillows, and books. Elizabeth wore a mess of silver bracelets, one of all silver beads, and Carrie wore her own set of rings and a splattered turquoise top, her blond hair floating down her back (although Collette infinitely preferred the darker hair on her sister).

And Rose read fascinating facts off the tops of Snapple Ice Tea lids, such as: In 1634, tulip bulbs were used as a form of currency in Holland.

And Lucia began singing “99 Bottles of Snapple on the Wall”.

“Hey, Grandma!” Lucia suddenly burst out, “wave to that guy!”

Everyone turned to look at the little pick-up speeding right alongside them.

“Blow him a kiss!” Lucia continued.

“Lucia!” Grandma scolded.

“Then speed up!” Lucia said enthusiastically. “I will! Hey look at me!” She waved wildly at the poor man. “Oh, he’s getting nervous!” Lucia said, laughing.

Fortunately, either the dude let the big green slug pass him, or he sped off; (Collette couldn’t remember which).

Soon, Lucia settled down again while the other girls sat calmly listening to their music.

“This is definitely the best part of the car,” she said to Rose, “the back with all the bumps.”

They all shared knowing smiles with each other, as they knew Lucia was bound to say it sooner or later. She had always loved the back of the great green slug. For surely, they inevitably flew out of their seats every time a slight bump was hit in the road.

As they neared Chicago, Rose was discussing shopping with Rose.

“Yeah, I can show you this really cool place where you can get neat clothes and purses and stuff,” Rose was saying.

“I want a Balenciaga bag,” Lucia said, matter-of-factly.

“You can get them cheap, I think.”

“Good, cause I can’t afford $1,200 for a purse.”

But soon they had arrived safely and soundly at the hotel and Mom parked the great green monster in front of the elegant hotel. Aunt Petunia and Grandma went inside to settle the rooms, and Collette hurried shortly in behind them.

“Well, we’re lost,” Aunt Petunia told her.

“Right,” Collette said, laughing. “Wait. Really?”

“No, no, no,” Aunt Petunia laughed, with Grandma and the boy behind the desk. “We’re just fine.”

They all piled into the two rooms.

It was soon evening, and Chicago traffic pushed them into Greektown, where Athena’s restaurant awaited them. It was a hopping spot and they were quickly escorted to their table. Rose ordered the lamb kabobs and Collette, Carrie, and several of the others chose gyros with tzatziki (a yogurt, garlic, and cucumber spread). Elizabeth had a salad and Grandma had a cup of coffee with her meal.

“Let’s wear togas!” Lucia exclaimed, just before their food arrived.

As their dinner was passed out, several tables nearby were served with flaming dishes.

“Ooompha!” the waiters would cry, as they lit the plates and columns of fire shot upward.

After a most delicious meal, they walked the streets of Greektown, where many cafés were still open to the night air, including garden restaurants and a bakery. At the Artopolis bakery, they looked over Greek cannolis, chocolate mousse cakes, Greek dolls wrapped in crinkly paper, icons of saints relieved in silver stamped around colored images… Different traditions. But several of them made tasty selections, and it was back to the hotel for the evening.

Eve and Lucia would have gone to the hot tub, but everyone was tired and soon fell asleep. Only some of them woke during the night to a great thunderstorm as it crashed through Schaumberg.

Over their continental breakfast the following morning, Grandma continued to complain about Lucia’s destructed jeans and they discussed Aunt Petunia’s job, and of all the little Asian children waiting for adoption. Oddly enough, they were surrounded by many Asians during their breakfast, sitting at the other tables over bowls of steaming noodles.

The rest of the day consisted of a whirlwind tour of Wheaton College, with Diana as tour guide, and a flurried shopping through Naperville. Deep dish pizza was served for lunch, the spinach pizza being a favorite of Mom’s and Elizabeth’s. Following that, Diana was dropped off back at her apartment and it was time to pull out the big guns and hit a shopping mall with intersecting levels of many novelty stores. While all the girls enjoyed this opportunity, Grandma, Aunt Petunia, Mom, and Collette hit IKEA, a Swedish home goods store which Aunt Petunia had heard about.

It was pretty magnificent – a three-level warehouse shaped as an octagon. And one could look down from the top to the levels below. Upon entering, they saw that the special of the day was some sort of peach-salmon at the restaurant on the top level. They each took a shopping list guide, small pencil, and thin plastic-paper measuring tape from the wall (much as one would tear a post-it off a note deck). And then they shopped, for how many hours, Collette knew not.

Aunt Petunia found a lovely mirrored sconce in the simple, straight-lines Swedish fashion and indicated its number on her shopping list. There were duvets they looked over as well and a bamboo plant for Aunt Petunia’s desk at work. Mom found a set of brightly colored nesting boxes for Linnea’s birthday. And Grandma, upon entering the Swedish food market by the Bistro, loaded up her basket with all sorts of Swedish cookies, chocolates, crackers, and such. It was a most fascinating store.

But it was soon time to pick up the girls at the mall.

“So what did you all find?” Mom asked.

Carrie rolled her eyes in happiness, “Just the best store in my entire life!”

They had certainly loaded up on the goods, Elizabeth and Carrie. Eve waited to spend any money until they entered the next store, a jewelry shop of the most dazzling sparklings and shinies and glitterings.

Meanwhile, Aunt Petunia took Lucia to purchase some clothing which she had found elsewhere. And before the evening had taken too long, Grandma, Elizabeth, Carrie, Eve, and Rose had all purchased their jewelry selections and waited (several with mochas) in the van for Aunt Petunia and Lucia to return. Carrie twirled her new red-gem ring in the light of the van. And Eve had found a delicate silver ring of entwining hands with a pale pink stone in between.

It was then nine o’clock, and it was decided that they should make an attempt at finding a lighthouse on the shore.

“I’m scared, Rose,” Lucia was saying as the moms examined the map to find Golf Road. “What if my dad makes me take everything back? Thanks, Big E,” she called to Elizabeth as Elizabeth adjusted the air conditioning to the back seat.

The girls began to share a box of Swedish cookies.

“We have to make Dad a happy person,” Lucia called to Aunt Petunia. “I’m not even kidding.”

For two hours they drove around Golf Road and the grand and wealthy shore homes of the lake as the dark of night enveloped the sky. Only the moon shone brightly above the lake’s waters. The lighthouse was nowhere to be seen. They passed the magnificent grandeur of the B’Hai church. It made Collette sad to see such an incredible structure devoted to a cult; it was a most beautiful place.

But the lighthouse was nowhere. Finally, after they had traveled down the same street a dozen times or more, Mom pulled into a dead-end street right by the lake and they watched for the light. There it shone, every few seconds, a white beam far off across the lake.

And so to satisfy their disappointment, Mom and Aunt Petunia found a park nearby and everyone but Grandma and Collette hopped out enthusiastically to walk along the shore at night and the waves.

But their journey had just begun for the night. Another two hours on the road found them hopelessly lost. The map was wrong, Grandma could tell them where to go but no one listened, Carrie could tell them which direction to take but no one listened, Aunt Petunia threatened to tear up the map, and no one was getting anywhere, fast.

Finally, after ringing the bell at a fire station with no answer, they spotted a policeman who told Aunt Petunia their way out back to the now-infamous Golf Road.

“It’s so easy,” she laughed, getting back into the van.

And so, after several other wrong turns, they entered a circle on the road. It was sort of a one-sided clover leaf where all roads branched off of the circle. Unfortunately, no one knew which road to take, and they were soon riding the merry-go-round in a never-ending circle.

“It’s that way!”

“No, no, it says 58; we want Golf!”

“Try that one!”

“No, dead end!”

“Here!”

“There!”

“Go there!”

Finally, after much deliberation, they selected the correct road. They were all laughing by that time.

“Let’s do it again,” Aunt Petunia chuckled heartily.

“No!”

It must have been two or three in the morning by the time they finally got to sleep that night, and what a way it was to end their day in Chicago. The next day on the ride home, they looked over their finds, laughed over their muddles, and enjoyed good conversation, secrets, games, and jokes over Bob Evans for lunch. Perhaps the next trip would take them to a quieter place, Collette thought. However, she concluded, with such a bunch of girls, whatever place they visited would no longer be quiet after their arrival.