Familiar Territory

Days 291-292

The drive out of Indiana and into Chicago began our assimilation back into normalcy. Traffic was thick for a Saturday and was comparable to some of the other big cities we have visited on the trip. Worse than Phoenix and Houston, the same as Los Angeles, better than New York City. What stuck out to us was the familiarity of things. Turning off the interstate onto highway 62 with signs to the suburbs sparked a nostalgic flashback to 2017. Hey I remember that! Oh look, they did tear down that building! 

The closer we got to our friends house the more at home we felt. We had lived in this area for three years. It was always a nice place to be. We liked it here. Still an hour from our destination, the GPS gets turned off and we make our way by memory. What a strange feeling. In 10 months we haven't known where we are going. To look up and think to yourself, "I need to turn left", takes the feeling of our exploration and puts a damper on it. The thoughts of the end haven't fully set in yet. We show up at our friends to a big welcome and hello. It's off to a ball game for their daughter and back to the house for dinner and time to catch up. It's a wonderful time where we get to talk to someone in person we know. We get to talk to someone besides each other. The night slips by and turns into Sunday. 

We go about our lives and take Eli out for a walk . A cruise through town takes us to our old neighborhood to look up another friend who may or may not be home. We knock and wait... nothing. He must be out for the day. Eli is looking around and smelling the air intently. He knows where his is. The three of us climb back into Shirley for a trip down to the lake. Our whole time living here this town and lake were kind of a joke to the local community. It was known as the low dollar cheapy place to live. Well my friends we have seen a lot of places both good and bad over the last year and let me tell you, this ain't so bad. Yards are taken care of and the streets are free of trash. People wave as you drive by. The lake itself looks inviting with no signs of pollution or outrageous mineral levels. It's a nice place to be and we missed it. We're almost home for good. Only two days left. Two more days of life on the road.