Shicagtown

Due to my somewhat busy night in Chicago last night, I was unfortunately unable to post on the blog until now. But I’m trying to keep up with it, as I type on the highway leading westward out of the greater Chicago area. So where do I start. We had a pretty quiet night in Cleveland, with a little bit of exploration and a little bit of dinner at a very empty bar. We saw the billboard where Lebron used to be (now covered by a Shermin Williams ad), saw the building where the Cavaliers play, and soaked up the ghost town that Cleveland is turning in to. Talking with locals in most of the areas that we’ve been in has really shown us the extent of the depression that’s sweeping this area especially. In the hotel in Cleveland, one of the employees told us that over the past year, 4,000 jobs were lost just in that specific district. It’s a real shame that will hopefully be alleviated somehow, whether it’s from the people, the Government, or possibly some sort of higher power? To finish my quick tangent here, I was a little bit dismayed by the election results from the homebase back in Maine. I felt everything went pretty well except for the Gubernatorial race. I feel Paul Lepage is the worst option that we had for Governor and hope that his term ends up being short and relatively uneventful. I thought Eliot Cutler was going to pull it off for a while there but it didn’t end up working out. I’m also very perplexed by the GOP taking back the House. Will and I have had many conversations about how it seems that America as a whole has never been satisfied with the job that the Government is doing so we just elect different parties every few years and hope they’ll be able to bring us change. The democrats couldn’t get it done the past few years so as a country, we’re evidently hoping that the republicans will be the trick. Who knows what will happen? It just seems that the more I look into it the more dismayed I become about the present and future of our country. Now that my sporadic rant is finished, I’ll continue onto our explorations of Cleveland. After breakfast, Will went straight onto the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I explored some other areas before joining him. I liked the Browns stadium, and I was very tempted by 50% off Brady Quinn and Braylon Edwards jerseys in the team store. I then moved on to the Hall, an experience that I admittedly wasn’t that psyched about. For the most part the outfits and memorabilia didn’t do anything for me, but the few movies that featured interviews and performances of the inductees were extremely powerful and educational. The greatest thing that I left Cleveland with was a true understanding of how Rock and Roll is more important as a concept, a large group rebelling against the expectations of society, Honestly, for the most part, I appreciate the beliefs of the movement more than I do the music. It was a good experience that was topped off with an easy drive to Chicago filled with more great music, highly philosophical conversations, and a lack of landmarks. We arrived in Chicago to overwhelming traffic, but after we found our way to Will’s friend, Eric’s place of work, we were able to get a tour of the Northwestern campus from him. Eric and Will were roommates as freshman at BU, but Eric transferred to Northwestern for his final three years and is still living in the area, one that he is very familiar with. We explored the campus, ate some ridiculously good deep dish pizza, and visited the fraternity that Eric was president of during his time at NU. It was a good night, capped off by the wonderful hospitality of Eric’s family. They welcomed us into their house with open arms, fed us, and sent us off with a good feeling about Russian hospitality. Today we traveled from the northern suburbs into the heart of the city, grabbed some lunch with Eric, and then hit the road again. We finally reached rt. 88 West, and as I sign off we are about 100 miles east of our destination, Davenport, Iowa. So keep checking in for more posts as we continue to make our way across this great land. So farewell from the Dekalb Oasis, Illinois at 4:20 pm Central Time.

I’d also like to throw a shout out for my boy Richie, happy 19th! Hopefully you had a great one!