Life of Wry

We had a quick breakfast at the Periodic Table — so enjoyable — then made a quick stop at Aunt Bonnie’s to say goodbye (I sure hate leaving.. must return!), and we were on our way. Had a lovely two hour drive — mostly along I-80 — through farms and hills…

(we saw a LOT of these…)

…. and got to Davenport with time to go to a Men’s Warehouse to see about getting Matt some warmer clothes! (We were both amused at how crowded the Men’s Warehouse was on a Sunday morning!) He was not prepared for the variable temps we encountered in this midwest Spring! We texted back and forth with Linda and coordinated our 11:30 arrival at the Machine Shed just perfectly. The Machine Shed is quintessential midwest fare… I had a chicken pot pie, the others all had some variation of pork, and fun family conversations were had.

[A note here: Reg is my first cousin once removed. That is, he and my dad are first cousins, both being children of one of the Short sisters; Reg is the son of the youngest sister Hattie Zoe, and dad was the son of Mary.. the third eldest daughter. Linda, of course, is Reg’s wife. They actually live in Bettendorf, which is considered one of the four cities in this quad-city area… Davenport and Bettendorf on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River, and Moline and Rock Island on the Illinois side.]

After lunch and photos, we followed Reg and Linda to a Fleet and Farm to get even more clothes for Matt. We hope that’ll get him through Chicago… where we expected temps to be in the 30s and 40s.

We said goodbye to Reg and Linda and took off on our 2 1/2 drive to Chicago. Once over the Mississippi, we were in Ilinois.

We filled the car on Cicero, then drove into Chicago in broody weather!

Our first glimpse of Lake Michigan…

And.. then checked into our hotel on Ontario, the EMC2, just east of Michigan Ave in the River North section of downtown. This was a great hotel, well located and stylin’.

We actually had a bit of downtime.. (something that will be rare on this trip!). It was nice to have some time and space to myself for a little while! Sure Matt felt the same (though, I will add that the time spent together has been exceedingly enjoyable!)

We Ubered over to the West Loop to a restaurant called Avec to meet Logan — Lisa’s younger son. I’d met him last Fall, but it was truly wonderful to spend an entire evening with him. Avec is a fantastic restaurant, too. It was a super fun time.

Ubered back to the EMC2 and it was a wrap on another great day.