Hi all,

Sorry if these posts are out of order, we had a bit of trouble getting them up (and formatting is always a little difficult when on the road).

We met up with Jeremy and his parents Mary and Scott at the adorable Le Petite Cafe for breakfast outside Chicago. After a quick meal, we headed into the city with Jeremy to see a few sights before we had to continue west. We did a spin around Millenium Park to see "The Cloud Gate" (a.k.a. The Bean), checked out a few other art installations and gardens, strolled along the waterfront, and surely exhausted absolutely every option of sights to see within all of Chicago in a blistering hour of frenzied activity. Or not, but we had miles to make and only so many hours to make them. Ultimately we parted ways with Jeremy after an all-too-short visit and continued on the road. We got back on I-90, our main thoroughfare for the majority of the journey, and made our way on to Wisconsin. We stopped at the world's largest Culver's (!) for some frozen custard, completely butchering the ordering process and confusing a very unlucky cashier (apologies to the Midwest in general if this is a continuing trend). Next up we pulled off to fuel up in Wisconsin Dells, a town of amusement parks and obligatory cheese shops, where we decided to give some of their wares a try... including a ranch-dressing flavored soda. Yes, that's right folks. We found the pinnacle of human achievement. A product totally worthy of the effort necessary to cull its ingredients from the land and bottle this wonderful tincture. Our civilization must not be ready for such sublime ambrosia, for surely it would be on every store shelf otherwise. With a heavy heart we left behind the dressing-flavored paradise and soldiered on. After another few hours of open farmland, broken only by a brief twist around a large reservoir and the ubiquitous wind farms, we stopped for a fittingly Midwest dinner of steaks and fried walleye. Finally, we finished our day's journey against the backdrop of a clear sky with a rose tinted sunset that silhouetted the scattered groves of trees and the farms tucked therein. We arrived in Sioux Falls, tired but ready to see more in the morning Love, Jeff and Kate.