Thankful Tuesday - DRIVE!

5am - my alarm went off.  Shortly thereafter I crossed off everything on my packing and to-do lists and hit the road.  The first part of Wisconsin was dark and foggy, but fairly empty of traffic.  Sunrise was a dramatic event, and I was relieved when the fog burned off and I could go a little faster without being all "I know there was a guy in front of me.  Where did he go?"

I was through Wisconsin and into Illinois sometime after 10am.  The Illinois Tollway is super expensive now.  I haven't lived in Minnesota long enough for the prices to have gone up like that.  I think if you're charging me that much money, the roads should be nicer.   Illinois also seems to be the state that's most serious about slowing cars down in road construction zones, but seems to have the least effective ways of actually getting cars to slow down.  (Have you driven around Chicago?)  I stayed on the beltways around town and mostly spent my day in the midwest country side.

I called my aunt when I was about 40 miles from where I get off the toll road.  The conversation when like this:

Aunt: Oh, only 40 miles from the exit, that's really good.  It's only another 30 or 40 minutes after that.
Me: Okay.
Aunt: You're going to watch a basketball game at 5:30.
Me: Will I be there in time?
Aunt: Yes, you'll have plenty of time, I just told you.
Me: I have no idea where I am.  I don't know what time zone I'm in.  I don't know what time it is.  I'm just keeping it in between the lines.

I got in to town in time to watch my cousin's kids play a junior high basketball game.  That also meant I had to to my mile run at night.  I wound up going about 1.5 miles, maybe a little farther.  I saw very little because it was dark and I didn't feel like wearing a headlight.  I did, of course, wear my reflective gear because I also want to be thankful for not getting hit by a car in the dark.