Our Sabbatical Life

There is a strong possibility that we might be moving sometime this summer.  We might not be going away permanently, and we would most likely operate out of two households for the foreseeable future, but we might no longer be living full time in our little suburb bordering Chicago.  That's both very exciting and a little sad. Will and I have lived over twenty years in the Chicago area, so a change of scenery is long overdue.  After all, there is a LOT more world out there to be lived in!  We are curious to see if we would like living in a place like New York City, or San Francisco, or Paris, etc.  Or a smaller town or a more rural setting with a mountain or beach-y feel--like Park City, Utah; Algarve, Portugal; Dordogne, France; or Abruzzo, Italy.  Now we are in the process of documenting some of the aspects of Chicago we have taken for granted but which we'll miss.  (In fact, I've already mentioned how odd it might be that we would probably mis...

In less than a month, Will and I have logged a LOT of miles in driving and flying.  Between professional travel, family visits, and social engagements, we've had--sometimes together, and sometimes separately--three driving trips to central and southern Illinois, and two round-trip flights out west.  Yes, all within the last 4 weeks! Needless to say, by the time this week came along, we sort of needed to veg out and relax.  But we also wanted to get outside and enjoy some fresh air after being inside cars and airplanes for so long.  (On our way back from LA, our flight was grounded, after boarding, for over 3 hours while we waited out O'Hare's embargo on all flights in the aftereffects of Tropical Storm Alberto!) So, in the middle of the week, we took off for a day trip to one of our favorite nearby destinations: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the main road heading into Lake Geneva is impossible to endure on weekends, so we li...

We recently returned from a whirlwind week in Southern California, and I'm here to report again on this part of the country that we've become much more familiar with since we began our "gap year." After we flew into LA last week, we picked up our rental car and then my parents, and immediately whisked them off south of the city, to Temecula, near San Diego.  What's in Temecula that there was this rush to head straight there before all else? One-cent video slot machines!  What else??? For the life of me, I fail to understand the allure of these video slot machines, but my parents absolutely adore these brightly-colored and obnoxiously-voiced machines that spit out incomprehensible instructions. In the few times I attempted to spend some minutes keeping my parents company by "playing" next to them, I've been befuddled by exhortations to "Stack the monkeys!" or been greeted with I-Dream-of-Jeannie figures calling me "Master....