We took four days off work and drove to Ohio for a little visiting. This is a day-by-day synopsis:

Wednesday
We left Chicago at about 10:00 AM Chicago time. Sheri started the drive and drove until about halfway between Chicago and Indianapolis. We stopped at a McDonalds. She had half of a cheeseburger without the top bun and I had a double hamburger. I got a Diet Coke for the road.

Traffic was light to medium for the entire trip except for the outer belt of Indianapolis. There was some construction that closed the right lane at one point. About ¼ mile before that closer a truck stalled in the middle lane. This combination of events added about 45 minutes to the drive. I literally could have got out of the van and gotten to the other side of the construction faster than we did driving through it.

We were estimating our ETA at 6:30 PM Columbus time. We coordinated with Sunny and Greta that we would go directly to Sunny’s for dinner. Greta brought barbequed pork and beef brisket, and corn pudding from City Barbeque. She also brought a bunch of good salads from the Kroger deli. Great dinner!

We played with the kids for a while and then went to Greta’s for the night.

Thursday
Thursday morning Sheri and I got up early and went to Tim Horton’s for breakfast. We don’t have any in Chicago, and we really enjoyed going there when we were in Columbus. We sat for a little bit, sipped coffee, talked, and worked the crossword. It sounds silly, but we had a great time.

We had to get to Sunny’s by 9:00 AM because we were going to watch Ben and Ensley while Sunny ran errands.

I did a little maintenance work on their PC, and then we loaded the kids into a double stroller and put a leash on Bear and went for a nice walk around the neighborhood.

I had lunch plans with Jen and Marianne from Bank One. I picked them up and went to Sky Line chili. Again, we don’t have Sky Line in Chicago and I was really craving a cheese coney. I wasn’t disappointed. Delicious! We ended up sitting and catching up for about two hours! A perfect lunch.

Went back to Sunny’s and picked up Sheri and headed back to Greta’s for a nap. We didn’t sleep to well the night before, so we were both a little groggy.

Sunny dropped Dylan off while we were still napping and before Greta got home from work. Sheri spent some time with Dylan while I was still hard asleep. She didn’t want to wake me because I was sleeping so soundly. The four of us were supposed to go swimming that night, but I ended up staying at home.

Greta, Sheri, and Dylan picked up a Donato’s pizza (another item on our food list!) after swimming and brought it back for dinner. We ate that and then went to Sunny’s to help here with the kids. Martin was out late playing broomball.

Friday
Sheri and I took our time getting up Friday morning. We also slept a little better too. We drove to Greta’s office around 10:30 AM and visited with some friends we have through Greta’s work. We then drove to a restaurant called Marshall’s with Greta to meet Fred for lunch. Good food and conversation.

After that Sheri and I were on our own again. We first went to Krema Nuts and stocked up. They have the best nuts around.

We drove past my old apartment in the Short North. The neighborhood looks like it has deteriated a little.

Then we went to Wasserstrom’s; a commercial kitchen supply store. We bought a bag of stuff. The funest thing I can remember is a canvas piping bag and a tip. I want that for filling deviled eggs.

This next part will seem odd to most people; we loved Super Wal-Mart when we were living in Columbus. They don’t have them in Chicago. So we went to the Super Wal-Mart on route 23 to just walk around. We bought a few things, but nothing major.

We went home and waited for Dylan and Greta to get there, and went swimming. I think we spent about two hours at the pool. Fun time. We all played hard and got good and tired out.

We stopped at Kroger’s afterwards so Greta could pick up some dinner fixings. We went to Sunny and Martin’s and Greta put together a lasagna and salad dinner. It really hit the spot. I was starving.

We couldn’t stay too late because Dylan had a soccer game early next morning. I brought the camcorder to get some good action shots.

Saturday
Woke up Saturday morning to rain. The game was cancelled. I woke up a little sniffly and with a sore throat.

Instead we took Greta to Tim Horton’s for breakfast, conversation, and to read the morning paper. I love doing that!

We wanted to see all of the development that has happened since we left, so we drove around the Polaris area for a little bit, and then went inside the Polaris mall. What a great mall! We spent maybe an hour or so just strolling around and stopping in stores that looked interesting. Greta and Sheri both bought cute little hair extensions. We stopped at the food court for a little snack. There was a middle eastern place that looked good. We sampled a stuffed grape leaf, two falafels, and had some iced tea.

We then drove to the Easton area. It was still raining, and Easton is an outdoor mall, so we just drove through a couple of the areas.

Then we went to a little Italian grocery store that we miss called Carfagna’s. We picked up some Italian sausage and hard rolls for dinner.

Sunny, Martin, and the three kids all came over for dinner. I grilled the sausage (to perfection ;-) and had some left over lasagna. Another great dinner.

Harry Potter was on TV, so we all gathered around and watched that. Dylan had not seen it before and he was mesmerized. It was cute to watch him get into it.

Sunday
We got up early Sunday and packed up to leave for Toledo. Got to Toledo a little bit after noon. Dad was working until 5:00 PM, so we took Mom to Rudy’s Hot Dogs. Another craving we had that we can’t fill in Chicago. I had three coney’s and iced tea. As good as I remembered.

We then went to the Toledo Zoo. It was the best visit to a zoo that I have ever had in my entire life! The temperature was cool enough that ALL of the animals were very active. The only thing I didn’t see that I wanted to was the wildebeest and the petting zoo.

Went home and had some meaty ribs, coleslaw, and steamed broccoli for dinner, followed by an unbelievably good sugar free strawberry pie. (The recipe and more details about the pie in a later post.)

After that we piled into the car and went to see the progress on the huge I-280 bridge project. Drove past the original Tony Packo’s restaurant, and drove over the high level suspension bridge. Took the scenic route through some nice neighborhoods along the river, and ended up at the Penguin Palace for an ice cream cone.

I had a lot of maintenance to do on Mom and Dad’s PC and was up most of the night babysitting that. I think I downloaded almost 20 megabytes of patches over a dial-up connection! I got the important updates that I wanted to get installed done though. When I was able to get a few hours of sleep between starting downloads I was coughing and blowing my nose, so not much sleep.

Monday
Even with no sleep I was able to get up by 9:00 AM to go out for breakfast! The place that I wanted to go to doesn’t server breakfast anymore, so we went an old standby; Nicks! Sheri and I split the vegetarian and feta cheese omelet. I gave Dad probably about 1/5 of the cheese and vegetables that were on my plate, and I was still stuffed. I love Nick’s. Tim (my brother-in-law) and I need to coordinate a visit to Toledo so we can split the $10 Nick’s Omelet.

Went back home and walked around the yard looking at Dad’s specimen garden. They are going to help us re-landscape our yard.

Dad and I went to the county engineer’s office to pick up the 2004-2005 county atlas for my map collection. Very nicely done atlas.

We left around 2:00 pm, but Sheri had to drive because I would have been unsafe on the road because I was so sleepy.

The grass was very long when we got home, and it was forecast to rain during the week, so I took two Benadryl’s (which turn me into a sleeping blob) and cut the grass. I showered up, had a light dinner, and crashed by about 8:30 PM.

Tuesday (today)
I am home from work today because I woke up coughing, sneezing, and constantly blowing my nose. I took a Claritin and I think it is doing a good job.