There are many reasons why I love the internet. Email, online shopping, Wikipedia, and of course donkeyporn.com. But my biggest reason, corny though it sounds, is the number of friends I’ve made through it.
One of the most valuable of these is my friendship with Greg. His was the first blog I ever read, and the inspiration for me starting up my own. Admittedly he has let his blog go to fallow a little bit over the past couple of years, but trust me when I say he is the one true hidden genius of the blogging world. I have yet to read anyone who is as funny or as good a writer as him. I keep trying to persuade him into going into a joint blog venture with me, but the swine keeps refusing. No doubt seeing through my transparent efforts to bask in his glory.
Greg and I read each other’s blogs for a while. Then we emailed each other for a bit, sent a few gifts back and forth, and then started having video chats. Soon I became friends with his wife Deb too, and Kerry soon got in on the act. In no time at all they had turned from internet acquaintances into valued family friends.
In 2007 Kerry and I took the plunge and went to visit Greg and Deb for a couple of days as part of our holiday to Chicago. Then in the autumn of the same year they came over here for a couple of days as an extension their trip to Ireland.
And now that we’re pretty confident they aren’t a couple of depraved sex maniacs we’re planning on going back again this April. This time for ten days, and we’re taking the kids too.
There is something that is concerning me about our flights however. Our outbound flight from Manchester leaves at 10:35am and arrives in Chicago at 12:55pm, taking just two hours twenty two minutes. Whereas on the way back we leave America at 5:40pm and don’t land back in England until 7:40am the following day. That’s fourteen hours! Even taking into account that it’s downhill on the way there (nowhere is more Northern than Yorkshire) that just doesn’t make any sense. Kerry keeps trying to tell me that it’s all to do with the time being different in America, but I know that’s a load of rubbish. We were there a couple of years ago and I distinctly remember it getting both light and dark at around the same time that it does over here.
Anyhow, all that aside, both Kerry and I are getting increasingly excited about our trip. We’re forgoing any time in Chicago this time around as we’ve decided as we don’t really want to pay for a hotel. And anyway, surely there can’t be much left in the city worth visiting that we didn’t cover in our three days there in 2007? It’s not like it’s a thriving cultural mecca like Huddersfield or anything.
So we’re going to spend all our time in Madison, Wisconsin. There have been a few emails flying back and forth between the Hughes and the Lee households and it appears that Greg has quite an exciting itineracy lined up for us. Here’s an extract from his last email:
I want you to get the “real” American experience. That’s why I’ve got lists of things for the entire family to do like shopping and laundry. You will want to contrast and compare U.S. cleaning products to your own throughout the inside of the house while I’m sure Kerry will enjoy exterior home maintainence (including wood splitting and concrete spackling). It’ll be April so if Evan is tall enough we may be able to introduce him to American lawn mowing. If he’s not, Amy will mow and Evan will get a first-hand crack at how people in the U.S. insulate their attics.
God I love that man.
I’ve been doing a bit of my own investigation into the opportunities for the tourist in Madison. After all, we are talking about the birthplace of Libby Riddles – The first woman to win the Iditarod sled dog race. I shouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t an entire theme park dedicated to her or something.
Of course it doesn’t help that we were in the area two years ago and probably covered most of the tourist attractions back then. Or at least the ones that will be open in the spring anyhow. We would like to revisit The House on the Rock though, if only to demonstrate that Amy will freak out about being in the dark with a bunch of sinister dolls just as much as his daughter Julia did back when we went last time.
But really we’re not going in order to gorge on tourist attractions and museums. We’re going because we want to spend time relaxing as a family and because we miss our friends and want to see them again.
But I’d also like to see you too. I know America is a pretty big place (apparently it’s even larger than Yorkshire), and so most people reading this aren’t anywhere near Madison Wisconsin. But if you are, or are likely to be between Friday 2nd of April then how about meeting up for dinner? I promise I’ll be on my best behavior and wont embarrass you in the restaurant.
Well. Maybe just a little bit.
Geg and Dan inspect the clapper of the replica Liberty Bell in the Madison State Capital building
