GLers in the midwest?

[groza528]

So I'm visiting my uncle (near Cleveland) for Thanksgiving, passing through a number of states and a few cities I haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing (Chicago, Minneapolis...) I've got a decent quantity of time off, so I'm planning to make a few stops on the return trip. I was wondering whether there were any GLers on or near the route who would be interested in meeting up somewhere in late November or early December?

Here is the route I'm planning on taking.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

I'm in the southern suburbs of Chicago, maybe 40 minutes off your route, depending on lights. We could certainly do dinner (If you show up on my birthday-it's in the thread-I'm making you buy ). If you're here a day I don't have to work the next morning, you can sleep on my couch, since I wouldn't recommend a 22 hour drive in one day.

[MNOWAX]

if you made it up this way towards Rochester NY, you could in theory visit lexprod and me , but I will be in Atlantic City for three days that weekend.
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[Courk]

Midwest GL Fest.

Sorry, no one had said it yet.

[Lepton]

It took some time, but I logged in to write a quick note about Groza's character, for those who are considering meeting him. He's a decent guy, fun to chill with, and he didn't ax-murder me when I met him this summer.

[LordKinbote]

I see you're swinging north of Omaha this time around, but you're always welcome on my couch.

And I was about to say "and next time, you'll know that my wife isn't a figment of my imagination" but then I realized that you were at my wedding.

Ha.

[LordKinbote]

[Pablo]

[mith]

When I was little, we lived in Holland, MI and then in Fort Wayne, IN, which are not far off your route. If you are driving a DeLorean, feel free to stop by.

[Courk]

*has successfully scared groza away from Akron*

I'm curious to see exactly what adjectives he uses to describe his visit.

[groza528]

So I've finally got some time free to post a recap of my trip.

Starting from my home in Williston, ND I drove first to my uncle's house in the Cleveland suburbs. I drove for 21 hours broken by about a 4-hour nap near Madison. It probably should have taken me longer but I was driving a bit fast far too often, and far too fast a bit (I probably got my Civic to within 10mph of her top speed because I was curious how fast she could go.) I reached my uncle's home before my sister, aunt, or cousins, in accordance with the family pattern that the person with the farthest distance to travel arrives first.

It was a stay full of good food and games. My uncle's second wife did a terrific job with Thanksgiving dinner and we had a great family dinner. Gaming highlights include Risk (in which I beat back my cousin Kristen to merely Mongolia and Japan before she got a good set of cards and blew me to oblivion), Pit, Sheepshead (which I had to look up a few of the rules for because I haven't played it in years), and bowling (Boomers v. Thompsons-- we thumped the Thomps and I personally played probably two of my best five games).

After that trip I continued to Akron, "the city so nice they named it eight times and then thought better of it, but unfortunately not before they built the bridge immortalizing their repetitive naming structure," where I became the first GLer that Courk has met! That is, apart from her brother, who posts periodically under the name Omega Centauri, and whom I also met. She had phoned me earlier in the week and commented "Wow, this is weird," and I thought "Yeah, I guess it was kind of weird before I'd done it a dozen times too."
We tooled around Akron in her Mustang, considered standing in line for the local Christmas tree festival, then went to see Boondock Saints 2, unfortunately missing the first few minutes of the show because it was only playing in a fraction of cinemas. After the movie we had dinner at the Olive Garden, then went a self-guided tour of the Stan Hywet (founder of Goodyear) estate which had been decorated for the holiday season.
This was the last of my Akron fun because, sadly, ΩC had to be taken to the hospital, for which he profusely apologized. Man, what a jerk, sending himself into back spasms just to ruin the evening (Hope you're doing better there, ΩC)
And just for Courk: fangorious, gelatinous, and... erm... line _{backer...esque?}

Following that I continued to Marietta, OH, a small town on the border of West Virginia which happens to be where my sister went to university and is currently residing. I spent a few days with her and her boyfriend; the latter was adorable the way he was trying so hard to earn my approval (which was only augmented by his being probably five years older than me). I happened to be there on the night that their favoUrite bar closed down, quietly heckling the fire juggler whom I had met the night before and who was really a nice guy and pretty good at what he did.
Before leaving town --well, I guess that's not technically possible, but you get my meaning-- I took a quick trip over the bridge into West Virginia, for reasons I will explain a bit later.

My next stop was DPW's place outside of Chicago. I came in and met him and the quantum probability of his two cats. We went out for a seafood dinner then came back for some Simpsons and some of the games from the good old Waste o' Time thread. In the morning he brought me to the train station on his way to work, with no particular desire on his own part to do the tourist thing so nearby.
I spent an hour or two just walking around downtown Chicago to get my bearings, then I decided to head toward the university to see the site of the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. I began walking before I realized that walking across Chicago is nothing like walking across Boston-- the relief of finally reaching the spot where streets are numbered instead of named after dead presidents is quickly tempered by the instant realization that you have over 40 blocks left to cover. So I caught a bus.
Next I went to the museum of science and industry, which is a pretty good museum. Got to see the only German U-boat in the United States, though I didn't pay the surcharge to step inside. On the top floor was an interesting game which read brainwaves and pitted you literally head-to-head against a compatriot to determine which of you could be more relaxed. A particularly cruel or oblivious museum employee at this point happened to ask the contestants for help on a brain-teaser, to name the four state capitals that shared their names with presidents; I mercifully stepped in to provide her with the one she was missing.

And now as promised I shall explain my short trip to West Virginia. I have an admittedly silly goal to visit, however briefly, each of the 48 contiguous United States in my new car. What this now meant was that I would have to take a detour, as I had missed Michigan on the way out, having incorrectly thought I would be returning by the same route. This left me with the choice of backtracking through the Indiana toll and braving Chicago traffic twice more to hit the southwestern corner, or going 200+ miles out of my way to hit the upper peninsula. DPW swayed me toward the latter, insisting that northern Wisconsin would be a nice forested drive.

I stopped for dinner in Milwaukee, where I almost got hit while making a legal right turn by someone illegally driving in the bicycle lane (who of course had the audacity to honk his horn at *me*) I also took a much shorter detour from my original detour to Kenosha, WI to see the headquarters of the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America; we still fondly refer to it as "SPEBsQSA"). Imagine my shock to discover that it had been converted into a Family Dollar! My first thought was that our vaudevillian hobby had folded under the economic stress, but I later learned that they had simply moved the headquarters to Nashville. Oh well; my car hasn't been to Tennessee yet.

I made it to Menominee, just over the Michigan border, then turned around and kept driving until I got to Minneapolis. I spent a day there at the famous Mall of America where I did most of my Christmas shopping; I'm still looking for a cute raincoat for my sister if anyone has any suggestions.
The Mall of America has a store devoted entirely to LEGO. Let me repeat that.
The Mall of America has a store devoted entirely to LEGO. I'm sure someone out there must think I'm childish to get excited over this, but I am an engineer. As an engineer, how could I *not* get excited over a toy whose only purpose is to be assembled and disassembled repeatedly?

The next day I drove the remainder of the way back to Williston, in time for our company Christmas party. Overall it was a great trip and some much-needed time off from work.

[Lepton*]

Sounds like a blast, Groza. How many trips will it take to polish off the rest of the states?

[Quailman]

What a saga! Have you visited all the contiguous states? To do it in one car would be admirable. In my lifetime I've only visited 47. I am missing Arkansas, Michigan and Hawaii.

[Courk]

You're misinterpreting the bridge. It's supposed to be read along the lines of: "You're in AKRON!" "Akron?" "Yeah, um, akron." "...akron?"


Also, clearly your sister needs a Lego raincoat.

[Chuck]

[MNOWAX]

Hey Groz, on your next trip lex and me could probably get you through the state of new york in any city that doesn't end in "city"
_________________
The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[groza528]

Quail: I personally still have a number of states to hit. See map below

Lepton: Hard to say; it takes a long time to get to some of the farther states (like Florida) so I'd probably do my best to hit as many of them as I could in one go. I'd say at least three-- next time I have two weeks I may try to hit up the west coast, pick up my other sister in Portland and basically hit everything west of Texas (taking a slightly roundabout way to my parents' home in Colorado.) Then I think I could get a big chunk of the northeast in one trip; hopefully I can get my next job placement in PA to make that one easier, and once I get out of the field I'd like to make it to Houston-- from there I suspect I could start picking at the south. If both of those plans work out it may take more trips because it would be less pressing to hit some of the nearby ones where I don't really have anything to do.

[Courk]

Pick me up on your way to Florida.

[MatthewV]

Fairbanks welcomes you!

[grz*]

It's not part of the lower 48, but if I get the time off sometime, maybe