At work we got a floating holiday since the legal holiday is on a Saturday, so I used it today, and Travalon and I headed to Chicago. We hit some really bad weather, so it wasn't a fun drive. There were a lot of scary sights in the sky, like a cloud in the distance that looked like it had a waterfall underneath it. Because the interstate was moving so slowly in the deluge, it took us forever to get to my aunt's house. We talked a while, then we drove to Old Warsaw and met another aunt and uncle for dinner. This restaurant is a Polish buffet, and I was happy that there were plenty of things to eat that were either fish, seafood, or vegetarian on a Friday night. The pierogis were especially tasty.
The aunt who joined us there is really into genealogy, so we talked about that a lot. At one point she said she took her family tree off the internet. "I'm incognito," she said, and my uncle said, "I'm in Oak Park." Badoom-ching. He and Travalon didn't say much; it was mostly us three women chatting, and at one point we were talking about fermented foods and what is the best brand of sauerkraut. (I don't have a strong opinion on this topic; I don't hate sauerkraut, but I much prefer pickled red cabbage.) I keep reading that we should be eating more fermented foods. My one aunt was saying how easy it is to make your own yogurt, and I've heard other people say that too, but you know what's even easier? Buying it at the store.
We got done with dinner early, so Travalon and I went to a spot in West Chicago which is renowned in the rail fan community because several tracks cross each other, and there's an old signal tower still in use. Literally as soon as we had parked and walked up to the tracks, a very long Union Pacific freight train with excellent graffiti passed by. Travalon made a video, and I took some photos. Unfortunately, my photos have not yet downloaded to my computer, and the video needs editing, so here are some photos Travalon took of the signal tower and the crossing train tracks.
While it was passing by, a Metra train went by in the other direction. We saw a couple more Metra trains, then we took a walk to find a restroom and ended up at a bar so busy that we couldn't order anything to justify using their bathroom, so we just left. We were starting to head to our hotel when a Canadian National came on the north/south track, so we parked and watched it. When we got back to the car, Travalon tried to remember which direction we'd been heading to get to our hotel, and I said, "We got derailed by the train," so he said I had to blog about that. The weather was fine then, but just about the time we got to our hotel, another storm blew up, so we decided not to go into the outdoor pool while there was lightning. Plus my former neighbor called just to chat, so it got late, and then it got later while I was trying to figure out how to access either the hotel WiFi or my phone's hotspot, and I ended up having to contact Richard Bonomo for technical support. He found a way to get my computer to recognize my phone, and so I can blog. Hopefully I can soon post photos of train graffiti...
Famous Hat
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