anything goes

There is no elegant route between the City of Chicago and the State of Indiana.
 
This weekend, we popped up for a visit with a good friend, and sat off and on for 45 minutes on a small stretch of highway coming into the city.  Usually we have better luck getting in than in getting out, but with freeway construction the getting in is equally unelegant.  Of course, we knew about the construction and were prepared for it.  It still was not fun.
 
When I was a kid, I loved traveling to a big city in a car, seeing it loom up ahead even as traffic picked up in intensity.  But when I was a kid, I liked plane travel, too.  The truth is, getting in and of any place these days is akin to circles in hell, some worse than others.
 
This was a trip to the northern suburbs, precisely Mount Prospect and Des Plaines.  Since I was driving, I did not notice downtown looming.  But frankly, I was looking forward to an opportunity to visit our friend and to see something in Chicago besides Michigan Avenue.
 
So we did friend things.  We saw De-Lovely, the Cole Porter bio pic.  We ate pizza.  We shlepped through Ikea.  We played minature golf.
 
And we saw the elk herd at a park in Elk Grove, another suburb, while we went for a morning walk amid bicyclists and roller bladers.