Or, how my attempt to avoid holiday traffic backfired…

We were heading north of Chicago on Memorial Day weekend. I had a work assignment – more on that in a bit – and it just made sense for my wife to come with me. Plus, our niece’s high school graduation was taking place that morning in Lafayette, so we could attend that and then head on our way.

Anyone who’s driven I-65 between Lafayette, Ind., and Chicago, likely agrees with me that it … well, it sucks, to be frank about it. Too much traffic in too few lanes, and inevitably you get one or two or six drivers sitting in the passing lane going about 60 mph.

The speed limit on I-65 is NOT 60 mph.

So I decided that, given we weren’t in that much of a time crunch to get to our destination, I would program the GPS (hereafter referred to as “Gladys 2” – it’s a long story) to avoid highways on our way to McHenry, Ill.

Great plan, right? Avoid the interstate traffic, see some places we’d never seen before, just a relaxing drive.

Here’s where I provide a helpful tip: if you’re programming your own Gladys 2 to avoid highways, it’s also a good idea to program her to avoid tolls as well. Especially if you don’t want to have to pay tolls.

I wish I had thought about that before our forced reroute – with Gladys 2 constantly chirping “Recalculating” – that ended up taking us through the backstreets of Chicago.

On the plus side, we saw some nice neighborhoods. On the minus side, we saw some not-so-nice neighborhoods.

Moral of the story: sometimes, you just have to suck it up and take the road most traveled. 

That’s what we did on the way back. And my wife graciously drove it.

This is where I toot my own horn, so to speak

I had the easy job on Sunday, writing about a 22-mile march to raise awareness of veteran suicide in McHenry, Ill., rather than actually, you know, participating. Kudos to those who did walk though, whether it was the full 22 miles, or 22 kilometers, or the 2.2 miles.

The “official” number of how many veterans die by suicide varies depending on who your source is, but I believe even one death by suicide is one too many. There are a lot of resources out there for those seeking help, whether for themselves or a loved one. I’ll link to one in particular, but please: seek help if you need it and be willing to help if faced with the opportunity.

Coming up

Sunday is National Cancer Survivors Day. I imagine I’ll have something to say about that next week. And Tuesday is the 79th anniversary of D-Day. Perhaps I’ll share something from when we visited Normandy in 2016?

I’m also working on something more substantial that I plan to post on Tuesday – not related to D-Day, that just happens to be the day I chose. We’ll see how it comes out.

More next week. Thanks for reading.

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