Day Five: Chicago, IL-- Minneapolis, MN

Aye-yi-yi! What a long driving day. I'm not entirely clear what took so long but we bid a sad farewell to Leslie at about 10:30 this morning (is that right? The time zones are confusing me) and a joyful hello to Dan at 10:30 tonight. The drive was only supposed to take eight hours, so I'm not quite sure where the other four hours went! We took a long cut to get here as a part of our quest to get to all the Western states, we took the route that took us over Iowa and up so that way we were Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota today! Somehow in the confusion of hitting three states at once in Dubuque, Iowa, we crossed the mighty Mississippi THREE times. (Fortunately, since it was Iowa and not New York, there was no toll for crossing the bridge - that little stunt at home would have cost me $24.00!) Then another wrinkle was finding a gas station that had 64 oz. drinks! So obviously I bought one and then had to stop at the bathroom 64 times. But even though it was a loooooonngg drive, it was a pleasant day and the kids continue to be troopers, even putting up with my picture-taking obsession! One of these nights I'm going to upload some of the pictures, but I always end up being too sleepy. Dan fixed pizza for us and Denise had made chocolate chip cookies (so between them they had my two favorite foods covered!) so we ate a bit and were amazed by the huge beautiful home and their huge beautiful cats...then the kids wandered off to bed and Dan and I have been talking and catching up for the past hour or so. But since we are both now 50 rather than 15 like we were when we used to stay up all night...now we are headed to bed since we have a big day tomorrow: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Mall of America!" Highlights of Day 5: Beautiful scenery in Eastern Illinois..."lupper" at a Mongolian Grill...talking/texting with Mindy as I drove...seeing my buddy Dan again....