Dreaming about the trip.

I'm not a person who can remember dreams normally. I mean sometimes I can wake up and remember something about a dream, but more often than not I don't even know if I did have a dream. Sometimes my dreams are so jumbled up that even if I do remember something I cannot put it together and figure out what the heck I must have been thinking. That's why when I awoke twice in the last couple of months fully remembering my dream and feeling like I was living them, was strange.

See, the first one was about a month or so back. I awoke with the feeling that Tony wouldn't be there. It kind of surprised me to awaken to find that I was in my own bed, and Tony was snoring away beside me. In that dream, my Mom, Jon and I were getting ready to leave for the trip, but we couldn't find Tony. As we got the van all packed, I was searching around thinking that he must be off doing some last minute job around the house. I looked all over, but couldn't find him. That's when I looked at my phone and saw that I had a message from him and I listened to it. In the normal "Tony" fashion, he was talking just like he always does when I get a voicemail from him. Then he ends the message with "I flew to St. Louis and I am getting started on my way to Springfield." I was shocked! How could he leave ahead of us and be headed out like nothing was wrong ALL BY HIMSELF! That's when I ran to the van and told mom what had happened and we jumped in the car to race to St. Louis. Well, we made it to St. Louis, but Tony was in Springfield. We then drove to Springfield the next day and Tony was in Tulsa. I couldn't believe he wasn't waiting for us, because I kept calling him telling him to slow down and wait for us, and kept asking him why he had rented a car and started out ahead of us, but he wouldn't answer me. The last thing I remember before I woke up was talking to Jon before we went to sleep and telling him that we were going to catch up with Dad.

Then, just a couple of days ago, I woke up from another dream about the trip. This time in my dream we were driving along on the way to St. Louis, when we realized Mom wasn't with us! We couldn't believe we forgot her, and Jon was really upset that he had forgotten her, too. We made it to town and called Mom to apologize and tell her that we would make it up to her. We told her to get in the car and drive to Memphis and we would pick her up there. Then we realized we weren't in the van, we were in a car, and all of our things were in the van, so we didn't have our books, maps or any of our luggage. The last thing I remember from that dream was being nervous about having to go pick up Mom and the van and thinking we were going to fall so far behind that we would not get to see anything along the way because we would have to catch up to our plan. Then I woke up thinking what in the world could these dreams mean??

So, I told Tony, Mom and my sister about my dreams, and they all say the same thing. I have become so obsessed about planning out this trip, that deep down I am so afraid something won't go right. Well, yeah, that's true. I mean I have planned out where we will stop, how we will get from point a to point b and what things we might see along each stop. Three weeks, when you think about it, seems like a really long time, but to cover roughly 5,000 miles round trip doesn't just happen if you jump in the car and "go with the flow". Maybe I am afraid we will lose someone along the way. How in this world would that happen when there are only 4 of us in the car? I don't know, maybe it is the fear that we will become lost, but how can that happen in this day and age of GPS' and Smartphones? Maybe it is just the fear that we will fall behind time wise. That could easily happen, honestly. I mean there is so much to see and do and so many interesting people and places to visit. The one thing I can see with this trip is that we won't have time to do everything. I came to that realization in the beginning of the planning process.

I guess in the end, the one thing I really need to learn is how to relax. I guess this kind of trip is not really the best to try to force myself to learn that, but I just need to set my mind to just appreciate this time with the ones I love and make memories, whether they are good, bad, or just plain crazy. It doesn't really matter in the end if we make it to the hotel too quick one day, or if we drag ourselves in just in time to go to bed. It matters more that everyone gets in the car and bond, of course the getting everyone in the car may be the more important of the two, haha.

43 Days...

Also, PLEASE COMMENT! I would love to see who is reading this. :)

Just a little Taste

A couple of weekends ago, I took Tony along with me to an AFS (the exchange student program I volunteer with) convention in Milwaukee. I had my tickets booked all the way to Milwaukee, but by looking at the flights, there was no way Tony was going to be able to get home from Milwaukee on a Sunday as a standby. That is the nature of the airline industry, sure, you fly for free, but if there are paying customers, they get the seats. So, looking at a map, I noticed that Chicago was only 2 hours from Milwaukee. So, we decided to just fly to Chicago and then rent a car and drive up. Once we arrived (at 7:30am) we set out looking for a breakfast restaurant because we were starving. Tony used his iPhone to look up a Cracker Barrel. We drove and drove and soon realized that the Cracker Barrel we had set our sights on was not a restaurant, but an antique store. By this time, I was really hungry, and I don't function well when I am that hungry, so we looked to see what was close and were able to luckily find an IHOP close.

After we ordered, I started to look at the map on my phone to see just where we had ended up, and found that we were just 10 minutes from Joliet, IL. With all my research over the past few months, I can almost tell you every city that lies along the route, and of course the first thing I did was get all excited. We HAD to go! Even if just for an hour or so! Now, we didn't plan on this, so we did not have our maps or EZ guide in hand, and I had not studied up on the Illinois section since we will start in St. Louis this summer. So, all we had were the couple of apps I had downloaded, but I wasn't sure how those would even help, and believe me when I say, GPS' are useless in following the route (at least ours was). One of the apps I have is called Road Trip 66, and honestly, it was the most useful on this little side trip.

The app shows you Route 66 (and several of the more known alignments) as a red line and the green markers you see are sights along the route. You can touch the markers and read about the sight and some that have websites will be linked as well. While we ate our omelets and pancakes, I looked to see what we might be able to find in nearby Joliet. One of the things that caught my eye was the Route 66 Welcome Center. I went to the website, and what do you know, that very day was a free museum day! Our minds were made up, we were going there. The app also said that the gift shop was a must visit!

We hopped back in the car, and I set the GPS to the address of the museum and we headed on our way. Once we pulled of the highway, we found we were right at the welcome sign for Joliet on a four-lane street that quickly lead us into the heart of Joliet and narrowed down to two lanes and finally into a one way street after the square in the middle of town. When we pulled off the highway, Tony looked at the app and saw that our location was now on the red line, but we wouldn't have known without that, because there were no Route 66 signs. Just about the time passed the welcome sign we saw our first Historic Route 66 sign, and from there we saw sign after sign, pointing the way. Now in saying that, it still was a little difficult following the signs, and I was glad we had both the GPS and the app going because it would have been difficult finding the way without them, I feel. 

We did find the museum, and it was free that day (so we saved $12) but we would have gladly paid admission to this place. It was small, but it was pretty cool. Right inside the door was a map on the wall of Route 66 pointing out where we were. Around the corner was another exhibit with a map painted along the top of the wall, a few stand up displays that talked about Route 66 in its heyday and in the middle sat Jake and Elwood Blues statues from the movie The Blues Brothers.

The rest of the museum was dedicated to the history of Joliet, and it was very interesting learning how it came to be, and what industries had built the town. We spent a good hour and a half looking at the many displays and then made our way to the gift shop, after all, it was a must see! We quickly found ourselves surrounded by many different Route 66 souvenirs as well as museum souvenirs and even a package deal of a Blues Brothers hat and sunglasses. We found some trinkets, and made our way to the checkout. That was when our real Route 66 experience began. The lady behind the desk began talking about the route and asked us how long we would be driving. We explained that we only had the afternoon, but that we planned to travel the route from St. Louis on this summer. She was a little disappointed sounding, like we were skipping the best part. We told her that we planned to follow the Illinois section at a later date, and that today we were just on a side trip and had a few hours to kill before we needed to be in Milwaukee. She gave us a map, told us some things to see and made a suggestion for lunch, and then told us we should come back and take our time, because to really see Route 66 in Illinois it would take three days. See, the real experience isn't driving the road, it is meeting the people, this lady was passionate about their place in Route 66 lore, and was ready to pass along some of that knowledge and passion to us. I think we disappointed her that we were not planning to hit their section this summer, but we promised to come back and give it the attention it so deserved.

I guess that is when I realized that I did have the right mindset for this trip this summer. The whole is only the sum of its parts. It's not about the destination, its about the places in between. This lady was disappointed, not because we weren't including Illinois in the trip, but because it seemed we were looking for a means to the end. I hadn't looked at it that way, and I think we may be in for a vacation that may seem rushed. There isn't a whole lot we can do about it, other than exactly what we said to this lady, we promise, we will be back. I am looking at this trip as a starting point. A way to discover places we wouldn't normally have seen, also it is only the beginning. I am sure that there will be places that we wished we could spend a little more time, and if we had an unlimited amount of time, who knows, we might never get back home! The thing is, we could spend a lifetime getting to know those along the route, but would we ever see it all? Experience it all? There are places we visit over and over, and I can still honestly say, even though we have been numerous times, we still have experiences to be had, things we haven't seen. 

After having this epiphany, I climbed back in the car and Tony and I headed back towards Chicago and on to Milwaukee, we made a stop at the Route 66 Park in Joliet on our way out of town. We saw the overlook that gave us a view of the Joliet Prison that was in the opening of the movie The Blues Brothers and we saw the Rich and Creamy ice cream stand and Dick's on Route 66. We drove on to Milwaukee, and with a renewed spirit, I jumped in to experience the city for what it was. I now have this renewed interest in living these experiences and looking at them with a new set of eyes. It is about the parts, not the whole, and this is how we should all live our lives, too.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”

― Hunter S. Thompson