June 6 - Got out of Topeka about 11. Got to Kansas City about 12:30 and found a place to stay. Dialed in, took care of random misc. stuff, and took a nap. Also called Kansas City Star. One of the columnists liked my trip, so he mentioned it in the 6/7 issue in his column. Went to the stadium, but got lost on the way. There are only about five freeways in KC, but there are about 25 highway numbers, and it is a total maze. Ended up in Kansas City, KS, and had to turn around, but the exit I took had a mile of no U-turn signs, and I had no idea what the side streets would do.

Anyway, got to Kaufman Stadium. This place is great. From the outside, it looks like the half-completed Death Star from Return of The Jedi. There are no seats in left, center or right fields; they start just inside the foul poles, and taper into two decks behind home plate. Instead of bleachers, they have fountains in the outfield. Between innings, they change between several patters, but when the hitters are up, they just run. In between the fountains, there are several patches of grass, including one in center for the hitters' background. The only thing against this place is the turf isn't real, but they are putting in grass next year. Baltimore won, 4-2.

Route: I-70 East to Kansas City.

June 7 - Woke up and back of palette in mouth felt scratchy. Sigh. Knew I was going to get another episode of the sinus infection that would not die. Took massive amounts of drugs.

Got on the road for Dallas. Left just in time, as really bad hailstorms were trying to cut me off. As I would leave a county, it would fall under a tornado watch. Really glad I don't live on the Great Plains anymore.
Went through Oklahoma City about 5. It's been 19 years since I have been through this place; I hope it's at least 19 more. It's ugly, dirty and has really bad weather. The Arbuckle Mountains south of there are really pretty, but I have trouble using the term "Mountains" to describe them.
Got to my uncle's house in Euless about 8:30. Euless is between Dallas and Fort Worth, just southeast of DFW Airport and north of Arlington, where the Rangers play. My family used to get so lost trying to find this place; I just drove to it. I don't understand.

Got caught up with my uncle, Herschel White. He is an old mainframe programmer and systems analyst from IBM who accepted IBM's recent early retirement package. He is now consulting and is having an interesting time adjusting to life away from Big Blue. My aunt had to visit her mother, who was having cataract surgery, so she couldn't make it to see me this time.

Route: I-35 South to I-35W. I-35W to I-820. I-820 East to Texas 121. Texas 121 to FM 157 in Euless.
June 8 - Had lunch with Laura Heisz. She is now a lawyer working in a trucking law firm. She has had a relationship from hell that has been over for several months but she is still reeling from. Other than that she is doing fine. She is doing some community theater, for instance.

Went back to my uncle's house. You know, I just hate Dallas. It's zoned way too much, the buildings are really ugly, the people aren't very nice, and there seem to be topless bars everywhere.

Went to the Ballpark in Arlington, about a ten minute drive from my uncle's house. The game had a 6:05 start time so the Yankees could try to get to Toronto and still get some sleep. As a result, I was the first one of the group of six to get there, and they all missed the first inning. They eventually got there. There were Laura, Andrew Tucker, Laurence Herrera and his wife, and Laura's sister Deborah. Drew and I caught up; Amy, his wife, did not want to go see baseball, so she didn't come. They are busy working; he has to travel a lot, and it seems that he is always too busy. I didn't know Laurence at Rice very well, and we didn't talk much. Deborah is a real baseball fan, so we had a good time. The Rangers won over New York, 6-5. The Ballpark is brand new. It's kind of neat, but is really a kitchen sink. It has Detroit's home run porch, Commiskey's Sky Box row, Baltimore's warehouse look, etc. Plus the outfield is entirely too large, esp. in left. But it is an interesting place. Left, got home, went to bed.
June 9 - Left Dallas for Milwaukee. Drove a lot. At one point, in rural Arkansas, I was trying to take a shortcut from I-40 to I-55. Didn't work out, there was a sign missing and I ended up on a dirt road with very poor, very black people living in shanties looking at me like I was crazy. Other than that, the trip was long. I was starting to get stuffy now. Sigh. Stopped in Cairo, IL, just across the border from Missouri on I-57. Just in case you were wondering, that's pronounced "Carrow". The motel was a dive, but it was clean. I went to the truck stop to get a newspaper, but all they had was bad pornography and cigarette smoke. Truckers are depressing. And to think I really wanted to be one for a while when I was growing up.

Route - Texas 183 East to I-35E. I-35E South to I-30. I-30 East to I-440 (Little Rock, AR). I-440 East and North to I-40. I-40 East to Arkansas 218. Arkansas 218 North (East) to I-55. I-55 North to I-57. I-57 North to Cairo.
June 10 - Got back on the road. Got to Chicago just in time for rush hour. Not only that, but they are rebuilding the Kennedy freeway, which is the busiest in the city. Traffic was horrible. Once I got through that, Northern Illinois and Wisconsin are very nice. Got into Milwaukee about 8. Had real trouble finding a place to stay. It's a nice town; lots and lots of brick buildings, parks, breweries, and Lutheran churches. But not many motels. Finally found one on west side of town. By this point, I really felt terrible; I was stopped up and had a touch of fever.

Route: I-57 North to I-90-94 (Kennedy Expressway). I-90-94 West (North) to I-94. I-94 North to US 41. US 41 North to I-94 (avoids toll in Illinois). I-94 West to Milwaukee.
June 11 - Started off feeling ok, I guess. So I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Right by it, they were having a big festival. A couple of thousand people with music and barbecue. It dawned on me watching people come and go that it was a gay and lesbian thing, and the museum ticket teller confirmed it.

Looked at art for about three hours. They neglected to tell me their video policy at the entrance, so I got scolded. Seems you can scan the art and use it as backgrounds, whatever that means, but you can't just stand there and film it. So I stopped. But I am not erasing what I got before that. Reasonable museum. The modern American collection is particularly impressive, and they had a glass collection which was amazing.
About 4, I developed a sinus headache, so I went back to my room and doped up and went to sleep, hoping not to miss the game.

Got up in time for game, and felt better. Not great, was still really tired and stopped up, but went to the game anyway.

Milwaukee County Stadium is very bland. They don't have DiamondVision, which is ok, but they play video with the light-bulb scoreboard. Uggh. Looks like an Apple II screen. Bob Eucker is good on the radio, though, and the sausages are quite yummy. Cleveland won, 5-2.
June 12 - I got up and felt much, much better. The sinus headache was gone, and most of the other symptoms were too. I was still a little stuffy, however.

Got on the road about 10. Took highway 45 down here. Wisconsin is absolutely beautiful. Lots of green with little rolling hills and trees and pretty farmhouses. Lots of Victorian era barns. Good stuff.

Got to David and Valerie's place about noon. They are very nice people; they cooked two delicious meals for me and would not let me help clean up. He is from Guilford, south of London, and she is from Montreal. They are both grad students at Northwestern. They just graduated. Valerie is taking a job at UT Austin, and David will be doing postdoc work in Tallahassee.

Their apartment is a carved-up Victorian in a neighborhood with a lot more of them. Wilmette is a northern suburb of Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan. Seems like a nice place.

A couple of their friends, John and Marty, came over for dinner. They are nice people. Marty is quite a bit older than me, in her fifties, and John is about my age, so they make an interesting couple, if indeed they are one. They are, however, buying a house together, so we had things we could talk about.

All in all, a pleasant day. I really like the meeting-people part of this trip.

Route - US 45 South to Lake Blvd. in Skokie. Lake Blvd. to Wilmette
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