We Take Ourselves With Us

Sometime during the winter, CBS Sunday Morning (which we watch every Sunday as a family; Harper expresses great displeasure whenever Charles Osgood deigns to call in sick) ran a feature on the Mammoth Caves.  We watched in awe. "We want to go to there," we thought.  With a bit of time on Google Maps, we realized we could visit the caves in Kentucky and then visit Tennessee: Nashville, Memphis, Dollywood!  And so ... We're on summer vacation in the South.  As my Southern-born and named son Penn observed, "You know you're in the South when the church is selling fireworks as a fundraiser."  Note, he said this just as we pulled into Zaxby's--where fried chicken fingers are an art form. Our trip began in the land of another chicken delicacy: Buffalo.  After getting our Upstate-on at Anchor Bar. Fried pickles, wings, wing dip, wing nuggets, beef on weck? Um, yes. We settled down at the gate, where for the first time in my hundreds of f...

After two wonderful days in Chicago, we planned a daylong stop at Six Flags Great America on our way to the Wisconsin Dells.  It would sub for our canceled trip to Cedar Point so that the kids still got some quality coaster time.  Our thought we to get there early, but we're us.  So, we rolled up on Gurnee around 1 pm; then, we needed lunch at Cracker Barrel because road trip. All of this slow walking as travelers had a benefit: we drove and ate through the rain, leaving the sun for the afternoon at Six Flags.   Here's a story: Shortly after the then-named Marriott's Great America opened in the late 70s, my father took my sister and me there.  We couldn't believe something like this possible.  We had been to the old DandiLion Park a few times, but wow, a real themed amusement park, that was a game changer.  We only went once, but I can remember much of that trip, including that it seemed huge and hours away from our house in St. Francis.  Goi...