The Greatest Spectacle in Racing? Yeah, I Get That

So after living in Indiana for most of three decades, I finally went to the Indianapolis 500.

Initially I didn't plan on it.  My parents were visiting my sister and her family in Noblesville over Memorial Day weekend, so of course I planned to go down to visit.  But I really didn't want to go to The Race and figured I'd come back to Chicago on Sunday morning when they all headed off to the Brickyard.

The best laid plans are subject to considerable modification when your nephews start begging you to go, and when your mom says that, indeed, they bought you a ticket - something about how they could only get eight tickets, rather than seven, although that seemed as close to a lie as my mother can get.  So I went.

Race Day is a well established tradition in Central Indiana.  My sister and brother-in-law are no exception, even though they aren't the kind of race fans who go every year.  Still, when they go, they go full out.

For instance, my brother-in-law Matt scored us great parking through a friend in Noblesville.  We had typed-out instructions from said friend's secretary as to how to find Mr. Striker's garage, which is off an alley near 14th Street in Speedway.

Speedway is not a neighborhood, by the way; it is a legally established municipality, one of two within the otherwise merged Indianapolis/Marion County.  They even have a sign in case you didn't make the connection between Speedway, Indiana, and The Speedway.

Food is an important part of all traditions and the 500 is no exception.  Other people may do it differently, and if they want to be wrong that's okay with me, but the correct food for The Race is fried chicken, lemon Archway cookies, and a ton of whatever else you can find.  My sister was having trouble finding lemon Archway cookies but finally found some Saturday afternoon.  Crisis averted.

We packed up early and headed out before 8 a.m., EDT.  First stop, the Marsh Grocery Store, to pick up our chicken.  While sitting there we saw a number of other people make the same stop.  Then we made the hour drive to the track, which is on the west side of Indianapolis.

We didn't really have too many traffic problems - none whatsoever until we got pretty close - which was a testament to the parking directions which told us to get off at 10th Street rather than 38th.  (The back-up off the interstate on 38th was bad enough that I would have been tempted to avoid it even if we had been told to go that way.)

Oh, before I forget, this was a mini-Driveabout for the Vue, which hit 20,000 miles since November 12 on the way back from the track.  Definitely an event worth commemorating on camera.

Since our directions to find Mr. Striker's house did not involve a house number, we overshot it initially but quickly recovered and I was able to back into his backyard without destroying anything.  Not only did he let us park there, but we could use his bathroom which is quite a perq.

One thing that impressed me is how little price gouging there seemed to be.  If you park about a mile away, you pay $5 (five dollars).  As you get closer, the price obviously goes up - we paid $20 per car to Mr. Striker who lives about five blocks from the entrance (plus my dad tipped, since it never hurts to tip the guy who's got your car for a few hours, and we ran the whole family through his bathroom).  I didn't see parking that was higher than $25.  To me - and I'm just using "Karen standards," not "Chicago standards," that seemed more than fair.  An enterprising property owner with the best location can make about $100 once a year - not really what you'd call a killing.  This is true of everything that I saw priced at The Race - seat cushions, which would be $5 at most stores, are $10.  Compared to what I once paid for a Cubs blanket (needed to prevent frostbite during a July game at Wrigley), that is darned right cheap.  Hoosiers are Hoosiers, after all.

As we walked in, you could tell that we were approaching something huge.

The 500 used to have a bad reputation, crowd-wise, but that's been largely cleaned up.  The only thing close to an altercation that I saw was a loud argument between a Bible thumper and a biker chick.  (Why anyone argues religion with a guy waving a Bible on a street corner is beyond me, but this woman may have imbibed in another 500 tradition, drinking in the morning.)

And now, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing:

It is such a Spectacle that they even have live music - while playing recorded music at the same time.

We arrived at the track around 10, more or less, so that we would be able to take in the pre-race festivities. This starts when a helicopter arrives with the green flag that will be used to start the racing part of The Race.  Obviously they are concerned about this important item being stuck in traffic.

Very smart logistics.

This being Memorial Day weekend and all, they have a really nice salute to veterans, where veterans, young and old, are driven around the track to lots of cheers and applause.

This year they had 31 runners from the Boston Marathon "finish the race" on the Brickyard.  It was a very cool gesture that was also greeted with lots of cheers and applause.  (I was impressed that somebody was able to pull this together in a relatively short period of time - well done.)

They also bring out an enormous flag.

 
If you are unclear on the scale here, count the little white dots, each of which is a person holding onto the flag.

Sometimes the pre-race moments are a little slow.

Still, there are various patriotic songs and singers, including Indiana's own Sandy Patty.  And, of course, it wouldn't be the 500 without Jim Nabors singing "Back Home Again in Indiana."  I learned later that my brother-in-law completely traumatized his son, my nephew, by singing along.  Enthusiastically.

During the pre-race festivities, there are a ton of people milling around on the track.  I'm sure some of these people are official and some are sponsors or other high-end ticket holders.

My poor mother was very concerned about them, and that somehow the race would start before they'd all cleared the track.  Fortunately, one of the things they've perfected at The Race is clearing the track before starting.  My mother was most relieved.

The Archbishop of Indianapolis delivered the invocation.  It was appropriate, as you'd expect, but also funny because he seemed to thank God for Izod, which saved The Race a number of years ago, and also suggested that as long as God was at it, He might help out the Pacers, who were playing in Game 3 of the NBA playoffs that evening.  (God apparently was busy Sunday night, but showed up later in the week to help.)

Finally:  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, START YOUR ENGINES!

First a bunch of pace cars drive around, mostly (it seems to me) so that Indiana car dealers would have a lot of pace cars to sell later.  Then the race cars make a lap, and then the green flag drops, and they're off!

The thing about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is that it is immense.  You cannot see the entire track from your seat.  People have different theories about what are the best seats.  My brother-in-law likes Turn 1, which is where we were, because you can see the beginning and end of the race.  His brother prefers Turn 3 because he thinks that is where the best racing happens.  To each his own.  The drunk guys behind us didn't like the seats, but I thought that they were just fine.  Here was our view of the turn:

Another Cook Family 500 tradition is that there is a drawing among all attendees so that we each have drivers for whom to cheer.  We put in a buck a person and the winner gets the pot - $10 this time.  (I forgot to mention that my dad's office manager from Omaha and her husband joined us.  It was a big thrill for the husband and I think the office manager enjoyed it more than she'd thought she would.  So we had a group of ten for The Race.)

I drew Alex Tagliani, Sebastien Bourdais, and JR Hildebrand as my drivers.  Hildebrand was driving the National Guard car, and as luck would have it was out first.  I was really cheering for someone else, because a guy who works for this other driver owes my brother-in-law legal fees, and told him he'd pay him out of his bonus if his driver did well.  Although not the winner, I think the driver did well enough that my brother-in-law should get his money.

The Race is well documented by people who are paid to do such things, so I won't bother with that here.  But it was an exciting race.  Apparently it set a record for lead-changes and speed, which made it especially fun to watch, and although there were some spin-outs, no one was hurt which is a very good thing.  There were relatively few caution flags which probably helped with the many lead-changes and definitely helped with average speed.  (I learned a lot about car racing, including the rule that when they are driving "under caution," as we race fans say, the drivers cannot change positions although they can and do try to position themselves for changing positions once the green flag comes out again.)

We all had radios to listen to the race, but didn't really need them.  I couldn't get mine to consistently tune in, anyway.  The public address system was very easy to hear where we were seated, and they have a scrolling leader board (is that what it's called in racing?) so you can see who's ahead.

A lot of people bring earplugs, but I didn't think the noise level was too bad.  ("What did you say?")  For about ten seconds out of every forty, it was really, really loud as the pack drove by.  Then you'd have about thirty seconds where the volume wasn't much worse than a typical 300,000 person event would be, and then the pack would drive by again.

And just for perspective, 300,000 people is nearly as large as the total population of Allen County, Indiana - Fort Wayne itself is a quarter million.  That's a big crowd.  When you think about other Giant Venues like the Big House (where the University of Michigan plays football) or the Dallas Cowboys Stadium - both of which seat about 100,000 people, you start to realize just how massive the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is.

At one point I went down to the main level and found myself right up against the track.  It was definitely the coolest part of the race.  You can see the cars zooming toward you and zooming past, but when they are right in front of you all you can see is a blur of color.  It goes without saying that you can feel the power of the engines all the way through your core.  Amazing.

The winner, Tony Kanaan, seemed to be a crowd favorite.  My sister said that everyone likes "TK," as he is called, because he's a nice guy who had never won and does a lot of charity work in Central Indiana.  So I guess I'm glad he won, too.

My brother-in-law had warned that Race Day inevitably ends early with all participants collapsing from exhaustion.  Although it was unusually cool (high 50's) and we weren't drinking, I found his prediction to be accurate.  The rest of the day was consumed with Monopoly and Big Ten baseball, and by 9 o'clock I decided that if I didn't get myself upstairs to bed I would be sleeping on the couch.

And that, race fans, is all she wrote.

Summer in Chicago is Beautiful; You Should Come

When I drove to Fort Wayne to get my last load of stuff I only took a small bag - a change of clothes and that was about it.  It was at that point that I realized that the Driveabout as I'd known it was over.  There's a convenience to having most of your possessions in your car, but there's a weight to it, too (both actual and metaphorical).  And while I will continue to Drive About, the fact that the majority of my daily stuff is not packed in the Vue anymore seems significant.  Perhaps for that reason I've not been in a blogging mood for a couple of weeks, but I have thought about you all a lot and decided tonight that it was past time to catch up.

After two weeks IKEA finally got me all my furniture - and that was only because I schlepped back out to Schaumburg - so my apartment is now all done.  (I still need to hang some stuff on the walls, and put away my office, but I'm in no rush to do that.)

Behold the living room in its finished condition:

It is definitely nice to be able to sleep on my own bed - not a sleeper bed, not a bed at someone else's house or a hotel, but my own bed.  That, along with the general disarray that is my office area, makes this place feel like my home.  Hooray!

But the month of May has not been only about the trials and tribulations of decorating.  I've been getting used to Chicago and loving every minute of it.

For instance, the Lakeshore is amazing and it's a block away from my apartment.  The bike trail, which ends just north of me, goes 18 miles south.  I've ridden it as far as Navy Pier, which is about seven and a half miles south.  The going part was great; it was on the return trip that I discovered just how windy the Windy City can be.  Let's just say I got a much better workout on the way back, and had I stopped pedaling for even a few seconds I'm sure the wind would have knocked me over.  But the wind was a minor inconvenience compared to the beauty of the lake that day.

And it's not always that windy - last Sunday I rode my bike to church, which is conveniently located a few blocks off Lakeshore Drive and Belmont, so I can take the bike trail most of the way, and the ride back home was easy.

Even when the sun isn't shiny it's beautiful.  This is where I take my morning walk.

The one good thing about having to sleep on my sofa bed for a couple of weeks was that one morning I woke up in time to see the sunrise over the lake, which I see from the living room but not the bedroom.  It was amazing.  I couldn't get any good pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it.  The most interesting thing is that it takes most of an hour for the light to get from the north side of Lake Michigan to the sky over the south end.  You see oranges and pinks from the sun beginning to peak up over the horizon at "my" end of the lake, and the sky is still completely blue-gray downtown and further south.

I've had no trouble figuring out the L, but the buses have been a bit more problematic even with the handy aid of Google Maps Transit Directions.  It took me an hour and a half, and two buses, to get home from downtown one evening when I tried to do it at rush hour.  Note to self:  don't do that again.  Walk another half mile to the train.  But generally I've been able to get around.  The second weekend I was here I flew to Pittsburgh for my cousin's daughter's Bat Mitzvah (she did great!) and took two buses and a train to get to O'Hare.  It took longer than predicted because the buses don't run quite according to schedule, but for $2.75 you can hardly beat it.  I have my own CTA card and now that I know how everything works I feel very much like a Chicagoan.

On a related note, my IPass transponder finally started working so I can zip through toll booths lickety-split. That has been helpful in my trips to IKEA, among other places.

I hate to get all political on you, but when I have an experience where dealing with the government is substantially better than dealing with a private corporation, I feel obligated to share that with you.  And no, this story does not involve IKEA, which I've resolved just to let go of so as to avoid high blood pressure.

Okay, I have a "credit freeze" on my credit, which means that no one can check my credit without my allowing them to.  This is a good thing for reducing the risk of identity theft, but I will tell you that everything else about it is a pain in the behind.  First of all, you have to remember that you've frozen it, and not lose the letters that the credit bureaus send you (there are three of them, just to make things more time consuming for you) which contain your 10-digit personal identification number and the instructions for unfreezing your credit when you want someone to give you a loan, or approve a lease - or sell you high speed internet.  When you want such a thing, you have to call one or more of the credit bureaus - and that is as simple and as much fun as you'd think it would be.

I had unfrozen everything in late March, when my landlord had to run a credit check.  (That was a whole 'nuther drama, due to an inconsistency with my address, but the property manager finally got it worked out somehow.)  That was just for 30 days, then it refroze.  Of course, it was just after the 30th day that the cable guy called to sell me cable, which I didn't want, and high speed internet, which I do.  So I had to do another unfreeze for the one credit bureau they use, which is Experian.

My friend Plotts worked for Experian for a while, back when people in the United States still did that sort of thing, and he has nothing good to say about them.  He and I will have no argument about that topic.  Basically the deal with Experian is that you have to enter a bunch of personal information (PIN, social security number, birthday, address, zip code, phone number) into their system.  If everything matches (which it did in March when I unfroze things) then it's all good.  If not, you're just out of luck.  There are no humans available to help, and their website is as unfriendly as their phone system is.  You have no choice but to send them a letter (a letter!) with a bunch of documentation, and then hope that the good people in Honduras, or wherever they are, eventually get around to unfreezing your credit.  One of the pieces of information they require is a driver's license showing your current address.  And so, after being beaten down by Experian to the point where I was willing to send them their stupid letter (a letter!), I decided I had no other choice but to get an Illinois driver's license.

I know the people who issue driver's licenses have been back and forth between making the documentation requirements so onerous that no one can get a driver's license (at one point in Indiana 16-year-olds were expected to bring in utility bills showing proof of address) and so easy that, oh, I don't know, anyone who can drive can get one.  This can be a challenge when you move since no one really wants to be first to acknowledge that you aren't a criminal or a terrorist trying to get a fake ID.  In Illinois you need your current license, a social security card, another photo ID (luckily I have a passport) and two pieces of mail sent to you at your new address.

Unfortunately I had only brought a bank statement so things looked hopeless for a few moments while the guy at Thompson Center politely explained to me what was required.  And then a flash of hope - I happened to have my laptop with me, which I rarely carry around, and my lease was on my laptop!  And they accepted it, which amazed me.  In a good way.

Next I had to pass the written test.  I don't think I've taken a written driver's test since Ronald Reagan was President, and I didn't feel like spending $15 on the little book, so I was a bit nervous.  There were some "gimme" questions - such as "In order to reduce the likelihood of drunk driving, you should A) drink less, B) drink beer, or C) not drink at all."  Seriously.  I didn't make that up.  But I did miss one question - turns out that if you refuse a breathalyzer in Illinois not only is that probable cause to search you (I knew that), but they'll haul your drunk butt off to jail for five years if it's your second offense.  Good to know.  Some of the sign identification questions were tough, but apparently I can handle process of elimination pretty well, because I passed.  Which is good, because you pay your $30 fee prior to taking the test.  Those people at the Secretary of State's Office aren't idiots.

Finally, the picture.  Easy, right?  Not so much - I kept getting red eye and it took five takes to get one that didn't look like I was the Spawn of Satan.  The photographer was a funny older guy, who had his own little work area and seemed to like the autonomy he had to be a character, so he was, occasionally teasing people and laughing quite a bit.  There was a young woman ahead of me who didn't like her picture, returning about three minutes after she and her mother had left the office to ask for a new one.  The photographer laughed at her in a grandfatherly way.  "Honey, that's already down to Springfield by now."

Elapsed time?  Forty-five minutes.  That evening I spent more than that putting together all the information I needed to send to Experian - including a copy of the letter they had just sent to me at my current address telling me that a creditor had changed my address.  Right, Sherlock - that's the whole point here.  Anyway, I sent the letter a week ago and as of this morning the cable guy said he was still unable to run the credit check.  Sigh.  At some point in my future I will be able to watch movies on my laptop.  I have faith.

After leaving the Thompson Center, I met Beth, my business partner, at the City Club luncheon.  This is one of those groups that has speakers from various areas talk about different public policy topics.  Our purpose in attending was to hear what the City of Chicago is doing with data (more interesting than you'd think) and refresh some of Beth's contacts.  While she was talking to someone and I was politely standing there, I heard a woman's voice saying, "Karen Goldner, that is you!"  I turned to see a woman I probably haven't seen since 1969 - seriously - maybe we saw each other once in high school but that was it.  Her parents introduced my parents on a blind date, so her family has considerable significance for the Goldners, but I hadn't seen her in decades. I didn't even know she lived in Chicago!  Anyway, to run into her randomly at a luncheon with 300 people in a city I'd lived in for a week still makes me shake my head.  We snapped pictures to send to our moms.

Oh, I've been to a Cubs game, too!

We lost, but it was a lot of fun.

So, three weeks in, I'm beginning to feel like a Chicagoan.  I still need to find a place to get my oil changed and a doctor - one of the maintenance guys in my building has already told me about a great dentist in the building next door - but those will come in time.  (Actually, the oil change needs to come sooner than later, come to think of it.)  I'm starting to meet people.  Thursday night I am going to see a play in my neighborhood.  And I've gotten myself on something of a schedule for work, which at this point is mostly marketing but I feel like I'm making progress.  (Thanks to Christopher for being a great business coach!)

It's odd to think that two months ago I hadn't yet decided where I was going to be living, or when.  And now, Chicago is home.  Sweet Home Chicago, as the song says.

I can hardly wait to find out what happens next.

Movers Shouldn't Be Shakers

When last we spoke, I had moved about three quarters of my stuff into the new apartment and had ordered furniture from IKEA.

Things looked sort of like this - although this picture shows only about half the boxes that were in that pile at its largest point.

Since then, the delivery guys came and assembled most of the furniture.  I've assembled six items, spent about 45 minutes on the phone with IKEA customer service - a term which I use in its loosest sense, unpacked and put everything away except for shoes (Mitch and I are great movers - nothing broke), gone to Fort Wayne to see some friends and return with the last load, put that away, and enjoyed a glass of wine while looking at the Lake.  Oh, and met with my business partner to work on some things.

Wow - no wonder I was a bit wiped out last night.

Let's start with the furniture, because its completion was (is) necessary to everything else getting done.

The delivery/assembly team, Marcus and his two guys, showed up as scheduled on Thursday, with 31 boxes although there were supposed to be 32.  Apparently IKEA's inventory system doesn't update real time, or something, and the sofa cover that was in stock at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday was not there at 8 a.m. Thursday when Marcus and his two guys picked everything up.  Although disappointing, that is not a big deal.

A bigger deal is that they sold me the wrong size bed slats so Marcus and his two guys couldn't finish the bed.  As a result I am sleeping on my uncovered sofa bed which is okay but annoying (a First World Problem, as they say).  It means that the bedroom looks like it is in disarray even if the rest of my stuff were put away, which means that it is attracting all of the miscellaneous stuff and therefore is a mess.  But here is proof (photographs of empty bins) that I have made great progress.

At least they got the rest of the pieces assembled, which took about six man-hours.  That reinforced my decision to leave the major assembly to someone who A) knew what to do and B) had the right tools.  But there were several items that had been suggested as easy by a helpful sales clerk, so to save a few bucks I did these myself. She was right, although "easy" for most people is still a bit challenging for me. Still, nothing worth doing is easy, right?

I assembled a table lamp (six steps, plus I had to unwrap it!), four chairs, and a coffee table.  The chairs and coffee table were a little hard for me, but that's because I have the spatial intelligence of a dead bug.  Here are my creations:

Here's what the table looked like halfway through:

My chairs work so well that I don't even think about them when I sit on one.  Here's what the room looks like, complete with my bedding (and without the sofa cover) in the interest of journalistic accuracy:

This last picture wasn't taken until Friday afternoon.  I wanted it nice and tidy before I left for the Fort so that it would be nice and tidy when I returned home.  And it was.

Another thing I did on Friday was to cook my very first meal that involved actual cooking (versus heating).  I made roasted vegetable salad for lunch and it was yummy.

On the way back to Fort Wayne, I decided to pick up my Ipass transponder in person at the Toll Road rather than order it online and wait for it by mail.  This required me to take the slow way out of Chicago and wait behind six people at their service center (who knew so many people did business with the Toll Road in person?), but at least I have it now.  Of course, it stopped working on Saturday, so I need to figure out what's going on with that.

Oh, good news:  my little butterfly friend lived!  (Mitch figured that out by process of elimination, in case you're wondering - I didn't tag him or anything.)  Apparently I have the magic touch with butterflies.

Okay, back to Chicago.  Here are a couple of pictures of the new place:

Speaking of the bathroom, last night I made a minor home improvement of which I am especially proud, since I not only figured it out on my own but actually did it myself and it worked great the first try!  The only bad thing in the bathroom is that the soap holder in the shower is corroded, so I got some colored duct tape and fixed it right up!

Pretty slick, huh?  Maybe I could be on one of those HGTV shows.

Okay, now it's off to check out a new church - Second Unitarian - and use that as a reason to learn how to navigate the El.  I've taken the El before, about fifteen years ago, but I'm giving myself a lot of extra time.

Let me close with a plaque that's on an underpass a block from my apartment.  Here's the underpass:

And here's the plaque:

And my new home.

The Eagle Has Landed (or "Where 'The Driveabout' Becomes 'Sweet Home Chicago'")

Well, I'm home.

North Sheridan Road in Chicago, nine stories up.  Facing the Lake (which is so big that I feel it needs a capital L).  Two blocks from the beach.  Three blocks from the El.  Previously I showed you a picture of the view from the apartment house brochure, but here is my honest to goodness view, along with some of my honest to goodness boxes.

And I love it.  There's a doorman (24 hours, Mom!) and an on-site property manager and on-site maintenance people and frankly there are so many that I am having trouble learning names.  When I moved in the place was cleaner than I would have gotten it myself.  (It was nearly "Andy and Jill Downs Clean," who were my former landlords on Elmwood, and that is the highest standard in property management that I can think of.)

But there's still a strangeness to everything.  First of all, I have no furniture.  It's both liberating and a bit unnerving (perhaps that's the same thing) to know that everything you own on earth can fit in three trips of the Vue and one trip of Mitch's gigantic SUV.  One of these trips remains in Jessica's basement, and I plan to get that this weekend.  But that's it.  Until the furniture is delivered tomorrow, I do not own anything that I cannot carry myself.  I am typing this sitting on the sturdiest tote I own, sitting in the walk-in closet because there's a light in here.  Although I brought home a lamp from the IKEA store today, it didn't occur to me to pick up a light bulb so I decided not to spend a lot of time putting it together tonight.  I know it's weird to sit in a closet, albeit a large one, but it feels comfy right now, and I can see Chicago out of my bedroom window and hear the traffic which is oddly reassuring.

The strangeness is more than the camping experience, which I will admit is made much more comfortable by Mitch's insistence that I borrow her spectacular air mattress, which inflates in minutes and is about two feet high.  Having lived in so many random places for the past six months, I've nearly forgotten what it feels like to have my own place.  And the fact that it is so different from anywhere I've ever lived makes things seem even more surreal.

This is going to take a few days to sink in.

Mitch and I started off this morning at, where else, the Firefly.  The Driveabout began at the Firefly, and its last leg should start there as well.

Driving into Chicago on Lake Shore Drive I realized that this is my city now.  This is where I get to live.  It's taken 171 days and nearly 19,000 miles to get three hours from Fort Wayne, but I'm home now.  That was an overwhelming feeling.

Then we arrived, and Mitch liked the place.  I mean, it is pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself.

We moved the boxes into the apartment (my apartment) - which didn't take too long, really - and then had a wonderful lunch at a neighborhood restaurant (my neighborhood).  Next stop, Schaumburg, to the IKEA store.  Schaumburg is a ways out - 24 miles - and in the early afternoon it's about a 45 minute drive.  On the way home, hitting rush hour, it took an hour and a half.  I'm glad I will be working from home!  (My home.)

If you've never been to IKEA, it's quite an amazing place.  Let me make a list of the home furnishings they don't have.

1.

That's right:  NOTHING.  If they don't sell it, you really don't need it for your home.  A big shout-out to Uncle Bill and Aunt Connie for suggesting this, and your prediction of the cost of outfitting the apartment was exactly right.  But I am having them do the assembly when they deliver everything tomorrow.  I have no spatial intelligence, and I'm comfortable with that - I don't need to try to impress anyone!

As we were driving back from the store, I said something to Mitch about going home.  Then it hit me.  Yes, I was going home - to my place.  It's been a long time since "home" has been a noun rather than an adverb for me.  I've said "going home" for months and by that I've meant to someone else's house or to a hotel.  Now it means something different, and that is taking a while to process.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote in The Rum Diary about his protagonist deciding to sacrifice some of his freedom for the convenience of settling down a little.  I get it.  I am looking forward to having my bathroom stuff laid out just the way I want it, and having a closet to hang clothes - and for that matter, being able to wear whichever of my clothes I want to rather than having to settle for what's in my bag.  Of course, right now I can only wear what I can find which is a relatively limited selection.  But I'll work on that tomorrow.  I look forward to getting the kitchen organized so I can cook again.  And I will no longer have that moment of panic when someone asks my address.  I'm glad to have a home base that is mine.

In case you're curious, since November 12 when I left Fort Wayne, I have driven nearly 19,000 miles.  It's been 171 days and I have stayed overnight in 42 different cities in 26 states (not counting the many other cities and towns that I've stopped in and looked at).  So many friends and family have been incredibly generous with their hospitality and that has been a wonderful part of this experience.  (As an aside, the Driveabout has gone on for so long that two of my friends have moved during this period, and I stayed with each of them at their old places and subsequently at their new.  I guess a lot of us are in transition.)  My first stop on the Driveabout was with my friend Beth in Chicago, and the fact that the Driveabout is ending, at least as a homeless experience, in Chicago is very symmetrical.

By the way, I think I'll keep the Driveabout blog active, at least for a while, so that I can chronicle (and thereby remember) my discoveries in Chicago.  This is just the next chapter in the adventure that my life has become, after all.  And anyway, I understand there are a few museums here, and just a tiny bit of interesting local history.  I'll check it out and issue a full report.

But all that will come in time.  For now, I am sitting on my tote simply awestruck that I am home.