Travel - Part 2

Trip #2 Chicago

In the last blog, Travel Part 1, I described lessons I learned from an experimental trip to Wisconsin (WI). We learned so much as a matter of fact that we decided to plan a second trip, through WI to Chicago, with a jaunt to northern Illinois to visit college friends thrown in for the heck of it. I guess in the back of our minds we thought, why not die doing what we are supposed to do in retirement: travel. Our trip was advertised by the Travel Agency (Chris) as an 11-day adventure. It was that alright. But seriously, here is where God's mercy and help appeared again in my life. That Bible verse in Proverbs 16:9 became real to me and I paraphrase with Eileen's vernacular; "We humans can plan our travel, but if we are truly trusting in God, He will direct our steps." We prayed about this trip and in our hearts the answer was let's trust God as innocent fools and go. Good friends of ours live by an unattributed quote, "God takes care of fools." I guess that's us too.

Wisconsin Again

So on to Chicago, we went, with stops in western WI for breakfast with one sister, a stop in middle WI for a fish fry at a famous supper club with Chris's parents, and finally, a few hours before hitting Chi-town we stopped at my oldest sister's home in eastern WI where I grew up. We did that with a couple hotel stops … all having great accessibility! Oh, and we picked up my youngest son in Minneapolis to help with my care for Chris's business days in Chicago. Just a few stops. But God's hand was on us, and the trip was proceeding smoothly. I hadn't visited my sister at her place for a couple decades and we had a great time.

Downtown Chicago

Chris and I took the boys to Chicago many years ago, but this time staying right on Michigan Av across from Grant Park was wonderful. Chris would take off for his business meetings and Seth would help me and also work remotely from the hotel. I would mount my wheelchair and hit the parks, cafes, and shops with Becky. She was another one of those saintly caregivers spoken about in my last blog. I know Chicago has its problems but the area we visited was fun, safe, and relaxing. We had a spectacular time on a Sunday afternoon putting seven miles on my push wheelchair with Seth as power motor, visiting Navy Pier, several parks, beautiful coastal Lake Michigan, and of course the Bean. Evening adventures included Lou Malnati's pizza joint and a warm evening at Buckingham Fountain with its colored waters changing form to patriotic music. In my last blog, I complained a lot about learning to navigate in an often handicapped inaccessible world. So, I must confess here that my wheelchair travel in this part of Chicago, including all structures on and along our seven-mile Sunday stroll was totally handicapped-accessible!

Back Home

The trip concluded with summer patio food, card games, wheelchair lifting, and lots of great company in stops with college friends in northern Illinois, with Chris's sister and parents back in middle WI, and with my sister and some nieces/nephews and their kids back in western WI. We returned to North Dakota on a Sunday evening, alive and still married. Chris took a vacation day that Monday and we slept in; exhausted but feeling like we had just conquered the world. 



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