Sofalogging Chicago and the 'burbs

Sunday, October 13th.

Susan had to be at work at 11am Sunday, so we woke up together with her, took another couch picture out in the parking lot outside her apartment and said goodbye to her and thanked for a really fun weekend. As she left for work, we left for Chicago.

We got with the flow of traffic, put the van on cruise-control and enjoyed the wonderfully flat farmland along I-57 northbound :)

The drive up to the city was easy and painless and we'd expected that to continue, not expecting much traffic on a Sunday afternoon. Well, either everyone else had that same thought and decided to go for a Sunday cruise down the expressway or everyone just suddenly needed to go somewhere important. In any event, we did the entire trip through the city at about 5mph. Once we got to Addison, though, we got off the expressway and headed east, towards Wrigley Field. Since the Cubs decided to stay out of the World Series again this year the area around the ballpark was pretty quiet and we had no problem parking right outside the entrance and putting our beloved couch up in front of the Cubs logo on the western wall. We then wheeled it out on the street corner in order to get the iconic red Wrigley Field sign in the picture.

We continued eastward and passed under Lake Shore Drive and drove into Lincoln Park, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. We found a little man-made isthmus with a perfect view of the Chicago skyline and settled down there for a couch picture. This brought the attention of a young couple, Tim and Shaunelle, that were also there for the view. So they came over to hear what we were doing and ended up having their picture taken on the couch. After they left we took a few more pictures but although the view was perfect and the sun was shining the air was pretty chilly so we didn't lounge for too long.

Instead we drove back up to the Northwestern University campus to find Rachel and get a couch picture with her. We found her and agreed to go for a picture outside the sorority house where she lives. She rounded up some of her friends to fill up the couch so we got both a good picture and set a new record for Number Of Cute Girls On The Couch At One Time :) After we took the "standard" sofa picture the girls decided to go for an alternate pose by sitting upside down on the couch. So they all lay on the couch with their legs hanging over the back of it for a very amusing picture.

At this time several people had been attracted by the commotion. One of them was a girl named Lisa who lived in a house with some friends a few streets down. She invited os to stop by and take a picture with them in their front yard. Of course we were up for a spontaneous photo-op, so Rachel and Lisa piled on the couch in the back of the van and we drove over there. While we unloaded the couch Lisa went inside to get all of her friends and to gather a collection of "flair" to spice up the picture. This included hats, wigs, an American flag, a plaster squirrel and a picture of some fellow named Garey Karp who some other guy has been travelling around with and photographing it around the world, similar to what we're doing with our couch. So this was a good chance for Garey and the couch to cross paths. We parked the couch next to the old upright piano that Lisa and her friends for some reason have in their yard and everyone put on hats and wigs for quite the festive sofa picture.

As we stood there we suddenly realized what we'd forgotten in Susan's apartment in Champaign: Jens' bed! So far Dan has slept on the couch and Jens has slept on the two pieces of foam that we picked up in North Carolina and the outset of the trip. However, Dan had brought them into Susan's apartment to sleep on them and then somehow managed to overlook them on the way out and accidentally left them there. So now we realized that Jens was suddenly without a bed. However, Lisa's friend Don was nice enough to offer us a piece of egg-crate foam that he had lying around and apparently didn't use. So our predicament was quickly solved thanks to our new friends. Lisa gaves us the address of her family in San Diego and invited us to visit them when we get there at the end of our trip. And we inaugurated our newly acquired guestbook by making everyone sign it. In a thrift store in Detroit a couple of days earlier we'd found an unused, leather-bound "ship's log" for use to log a ship's visit to different ports and to keep track of expenses etc. We figured that our sofa was sort of similar to a ship and that it deserved it's own guest book for people who have their picture taken on it. So we had everyone sign the "guest register" in the logbook.

We passed up an invitation to stay for dinner since we wanted to get back to the Martins in Wilmette to celebrate Jack's birthday together with all the family members invited over for the occasion. So Dan got to see some of his host-family aunts and uncles again and see how much his "cousins" had grown. To complete the feeling of being transported five years back in time Dan and Wes battled each other on the Playstation after all the guests had left, just like they used to. And, just like he used to, Dan lost... :)