To Chicago

After emptying the black water tank without incident, we left the Cleveland campground to drive to Chicago. Even though this is not meant to be the most scenic part of our drive, when the sun is out, the open fields and the sky are quite pretty.

Corey expertly identified the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant from a distance by the look of its cooling tower. According to wikipedia “Besse has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the US - the most severe occurring in March 2002, when maintenance workers discovered corrosion had eaten a football-sized hole into the reactor vessel head.” 😮

We also passed by the Lordstown General Motors plant, which was shut down last March to national attention. It still has picket lines.

Passing through Indiana was uneventful - other than finding out that 85 percent of RVs sold in the US are manufactured in Indiana, contributing over 30 billion US dollars annually to the state’s economy and supporting over 125,000 jobs. (Our Airstream however, came from Ohio.)

In Chicago, we camped at Camp Sullivan, pleasant but slightly farther out of the city than we realized.

Corey and I have both been to Chicago before and seen The Bean, so we skipped the tourist attractions to meet and eat and drink with many friends - from high school in Istanbul, from university at Truman, from work in DC and from climbing in Bolivia. The world is big, but sometimes, touchingly, it still works out that paths cross (with new small humans added to the pack). Heartwarming. And tasty, with special thanks to Eric.

Next stop on our way west: Decorah, Iowa.