July 27th – 31st – Chicago, IL and Sawyer, MI

We drove from Grinnell up to Chicago, or rather, Riverside, IL. This is a lovely community outside of Chicago proper, but has commuter trains. We were here to visit Hope and Michael, and meet their three children, Felix and his twin sisters Lethea and Cordania. Toby and Hope met about 10 years ago, while fishing somewhere in Northern Norway. Things have changed since then, but luckily people retain their fun-loving and interesting natures! (=

We spent the first few days hanging out in Riverside, playing with the kids and walking around the cute town and enjoying DELICIOUS food! Hope is a conniseur of yummy food. As she put it, "My New Year's resolution is always to eat better. For most people, that means to eat healthier. For me, it means to eat more deliciously!" No wonder she and I got along!

Toby and I did get into Chicago downtown one afternoon, and explored some of the beautiful buildings and saw the Gehry-designed Millennium Park, and watched yatchs at the marina.

Then we all went to the weekend house in Michigan. It was quiet and right near the lake. We went for a bit of a hike one evening to watch the sunset from atop the lake dunes. Wow! Unfortunately, Toby was bitten by some bug, and we think it might be a black widow. Luckily, he had fairly mild symptoms.