Grandma's House

Three words...hot, humid and corn!!  After Des Moines I was headed for Chicago to hang out with my buddy John.  The ride was long boring and all I saw for hours was corn farms...who eats all that corn?  It was cool crossing over the Mississippi River realizing how far I had come though.  I arrived in Chicago around 4 and it was brutally hot...around 108 with heat index and totally humid!  John wanted to show me his town and city so we took a trip downtown to Lake Shore Drive along Lake Michigan.  Chicago is such a cool city!  It's clean, the people are midwest friendly and the feeling is laid back unlike most big cities.  We cruised around checking out the Bean (I can't even explain...you'll have to google it), Buckingham Fountain (from Married with Children) and Navy Pier.  Every Saturday night there are fireworks at 10:05 on Navy Pier.  After some deep dish Chicago style pizza we went outside to watch the show.  This was the most amazing fireworks show I've ever seen...and they do it every Saturday all summer.  They had crazy fireworks that did more than just explode into colors...and I like explosions and anything having to do with fire a lot!  The next morning we went out to breakfast to his local diner and had some tasty grub and great "hang out" time!  John is a total bro and I can't wait to come back and see more of the city!
 I left Chicago around 12 and  I rode through Indiana and Ohio. It was not exciting at all, but way better than Iowa!  Lots of trees and cool river crossings and at least there wasn't any rain for once. I'm about 3,400 miles deep now and in the Eastern Standard Time Zone.  I kept stopping at all the same rest stops a pack of Outlaws (Ohio & New York chapters of a 1% Motorcycle Club) were stopping at.  I thought those guys were hard core, but they needed breaks just like me.  My neck and hands were sore from riding a ton the last three days and I just wanted to get to my grandma's house.  Finally I pulled into her driveway at 730 and it felt soooo good!  I haven't been here in about 15 years.  It's the same house my dad grew up in and it was so nice to know I had a few days with grandma to just hang out and relax before heading on to New York.