Category Archives: Travel

Days 6 & 7 — Family time

Travel,

We left Rock Island and headed to Batavia around 10:00 after a hearty breakfast at the American Bar and Grill. The countryside became less pretty as we headed east — still countryside, but flat. But it is always fun to be able to see for miles because of the flatness of the land.

As we neared Dekalb, Illinois, Clare said she’d like to see Northern Illinois University, where her dad and I went to college. The campus is prettier than I recall. We walked around the area of Altgeld Hall and the closer part of the Lagoon (which is much closer to the building) than I recall it being. The fallen grotesque has lost its head — I wonder where that went. Clare snapped some photos of a grazing baby bunny and some of Altgeld Hall.

We drove on to Batavia after our stop at NIU and were greeted warmly by Kevin and his menagerie (he has two dogs now — one belongs to his roomate though– and two cats). Ashley was there, and apparently so was Brandon, but he didn’t wake up until around 4 pm, having been awake until morning playing his video games.

We went out to a very nice restaurant on the river in Batavia with Kevin, Brandon, Ashley and her friend, Heather. We ordered too much food, as usual, but since most of it was pizza we brought it back to Kevin’s for breakfast food.

I took the girls to see a late showing of The Dark Knight. It was far too dark for me (perhaps because of the late hour, I couldn’t deal with so much violence) but the girls loved it.

We didn’t get to sleep until around 1:30 am, so we all slept in and had a lazy Sunday. Kevin bought food for grilling and Clare planned the next couple of days’ driving routes.

We have three more colleges to visit. Today we will simply drive — the first college is over 6 hours away — then visit the two near Cleveland tomorrow and on Wednesday morning visit the college north of Pittsburgh.

It is both interesting and a tad worrying that college admissions folks are visiting this blog. It is also understandable. We’d been told that admission counselors sometimes checked facebook and myspace pages when reviewing prospective student’s files, so why not blogs that mention or link to their colleges. I’m pleased that two of the admission counselors have left comments on the blog.

It is pouring down rain now, and thundering. Not the best weather in which to pack the car and drive. Maybe it will stop soon.

Day 5 — West of the Mississippi

Travel, , ,

Even though we spent the night in Galesburg, Illinois — Near Knox College, Clare decided that Knox didn’t have the aesthetics she needed. In addition, a train practically runs through the campus several times a day. We drove to the school, but Clare decided not to visit, and head out to Cornell College earlier than we’d planned.

The drive to Mount Vernon, Iowa got much prettier once we got out of Illinois. I was pleasantly surprised that Southeastern Iowa is beautiful. The green countryside is hilly, similar to Ireland, without the sheep and hedgerows.

We got to Mount Vernon the back way. It is a lovely little town — which I sort of expected. See, besides visiting Mount Vernon for the college it holds, this leg of the trip was a sort of pilgrimage for me. My favorite musician, Dan Bern, grew up there. His father, the late Julian Bern, taught at Cornell College and his mother still lives near Cedar Rapids (of which Mount Vernon is sort of a suburb).

The folks at Cornell are very friendly and we had a lovely, but uncomfortably hot, tour given by a enthusiastic rising junior named Kelly who kept on referring to “This side of the Mississippi” meaning the west side of the Mississippi which made me start each time she said it. Clare really liked the college. One difference Cornell College has is that students take only 1 course at a time for 3.5 weeks. I think that Clare would really shine in an environment that way as she tends to focus well.

We spoke to the same very nice admissions counselor as we did in the fall, when she visited Bethesda. She remembered Clare and encouraged Clare to come back in the fall when classes were in session.

After the tour and brief interview, we headed towards Coe in Cedar Rapids. The admissions office was closed and although Clare, at first, thought the anesthetics were ok at Coe, she soon thought, “eh” when we drove past it on the highway.

We left Cedar Rapids and headed back across the Mississippi River. Clare said she was hungry about the time we hit Davenport, so we decided to stop in Rock Island, Illinois after 2 hours. That way our trip to Elgin would be only 2 hours. We found a hotel and had a nice dinner at the Candellite Inn, which is across the street from the hotel, where the specialty was “Chicken George” — pretty good chicken tenders. We got some take out boxes, thinking that we could take the rest of the food home to my dad, who likes to eat — anything.

We got back to the hotel and began to settle in. I thought I’d call my mom to let her know we were on our way (I’d told her, last weekend, we might be visiting during the college tour and she said that would be fine) and couldn’t reach her on her mobile nor home phone. After a few minutes she called back on her mobile and let me know she and dad were in Wisconsin. With Wendy and Don. She said that since she didn’t know when we were coming she decided to go to Wisconsin. I wish she had let me know that was her plan, because we may have done this trip differently.

I called Kevin, but got an answering service instead, and thought we were kind of screwed in the visiting relatives department — the Follmans are on their way to Wisconsin today, mom and dad are in Wisconsin, and I couldn’t reach Kevin.

Eventually Kevin called back and said he’d be around and invited us to stay with him. Which is good as we are closer to Batavia than Elgin anyway.

Clare and I slept in (Clare doesn’t think we slept in, as it is only 8 am here in Central Time Zone) and will have breakfast at the American Bar and Grill, then head east to Batavia.

Road Trip — Day 4 — A LOT of driving

Travel,

Clare had two schools on her list in Indiana, on the way to Iowa, and we visited both of them today, but didn’t stop. Neither were a school she felt she’d be comfortable it. I guess that’s what this trip is all about — finding places she wants to live for 4 years. If the architecture is not to her liking, then why stop?

It was not really a wasted day — we stopped at Target in Champaign-Urbana and bought some traveling music and purses and a cooler. I guess we needed a rest from visiting colleges — at least Clare got to rest. I had to drive!

We’re in Galesburg, Illinois now. We’ll visit Knox College tomorrow morning, then head to Mount Vernon, Iowa and hopefully get to tour Cornell College. She’s got another school or two in Iowa, so we’ll probably scoot by those and then head to Elgin for a couple of days before heading back home (by way of a few more campuses).

We had a nice dinner of non-road food, recommended to us by a Dean at the college (we bumped into him outside the college when we were looking at it and he told us where the better hotels were as well.

Oh, and here is what we are missing by being away from Bethesda:

Note received via our neighborhood email list:

If you live in the area of [street names] and have found that the whole area reeks recently, here’s the reason: there’s a dead deer in my backyard. I don’t know where the deer came from, how it died, or why it was I was lucky enough to have it die in my backyard. We first smelled the odor on Tuesday, I discovered the deer on Wednesday (it’s in a hidden area in my backyard), and called Montgomery County Animal Control Wednesday afternoon. They say it will take them one to two days from the time of my phone call to remove the animal from my property. I’m happy they agreed to remove it at all, as otherwise I would not have known what to do. …