We Take Ourselves With Us

After boarding on Sunday, we had a sea day on Monday, giving us all time to sleep deeply in our inside cabins, explore the Koningsdam a bit, and just relax ... except, the captain had advised us that we'd be passing by the volcanic island Stromboli at 8:30 that morning.  So, Ned and I pulled ourselves out of bed and wandered the upper decks--from which we saw only ocean in every direction--trying to understand where a volcano could be hiding.  It turned out that it was hiding at 10:30--the captain had made an error in the timing. We made the best of it by going to an early breakfast in the still rather uncrowded Lido market. As 10:30 neared, I went up to the observation deck to grab some space at the railing--and in the distance, ta dah, a volcano appeared! Just a week earlier, Stromboli had erupted with fury, killing a hiker and putting the small villages at its base in danger.  As Penn wondered aloud, who would build a town on a volcano?  Great ques...

Just in case we were looking for validation of our decision to head to Chicago and skip Cedar Point, Mother Nature provided it: an absolutely perfect blue sky day in the (admittedly, still windy) city.  (For the record, it poured all day in Sandusky, and almost none of the rides at CP opened.) I've been to Chicago bunches of times, and we've been here with the kids twice before.  But, we've never stayed as far south as McCormick Place, which gave us a new neighborhood to explore.  After arriving very late Friday (we checked in about 11), we were hungry Saturday morning and set off for breakfast.  Our path took us past the Willie Dixon Blues Heaven Foundation, which featured a lovely garden in tribute to Blues legends (note the sky ... see, perfect!). We were walking up a section of Michigan Ave call the Motor Row District, which is where all the dealerships were located beginning in the early 1900s.  History!  Plus, we also found the historic...