Breaking Free!

For months, I MEAN MONTHS, our street, neighborhood, has looked like this. Uhg. Sigh. 

As soon as it appears to be in re-pave state, it looks like this all over again. Except this time around it looks and drives worse. It is almost like off-roading, as you navigate past orange barrel after orange barrel, swerving left, then right to avoid large pot holes and cleanly cut squares of once concrete street surface. The Honda Accord isn't a big fan of off-roading. When leaving the neighborhood, often turning around to detour is the only option, as you are met with construction equipment and blocked street passages. Language skills of sort are heightened! There's a lot of "damn", "son-of-a-bitch" and the more flavored "mother f&@$;##*!" Walking on a beautiful morning outside is squandered by the taste of road dirt and the hum of concrete trucks. The other morning I'd had enough and took my exercise from the treadmill to the nearby nature center 

void of orange barrels and chug holes, I pumped my way down the path and through the woods. The hum of road equipment was replaced by the chirps of birds. The outdoor peace fired up a burn in me to escape farther. Soooooo....King Ralph and I woke Thursday morning and decided to head to the burbs of Chicago. We had 36 hours till we had to be at an already calendared affair.  We tossed essentials in carry-on bags and headed out on the highway.  Then we got stuck, no sitting idle in Springfield for 30 minutes because of road construction, then we continued to creep along. Uhg! No escaping what we longed to escape. And then again as we neared my Grandmother's nursing home--more road construction. Road construction EVERYWHERE!! 

After surprising my grandma, after she treated us to her stand-up comedy routine (jokes she learned at the home's beauty shop), I kissed her and promised I'd be back soon. 

Then it was off to my bestie's house. Nothing is better than a bestie fix. In a night and day we 

Sipped cucumber martinis

Hiked Swallow Staircase and Trails 

headed to the southside--for the best ice cream ever! 

(Let's see that rainbow up close) 

After dinner, and as the sun set, we headed to the backyard for a fire and marshmallow toasting.

Then we all crawled into bed, slumbered, woke, drove home and headed to a Fourth of July party. 

(Blue and white clothes in a red chair--makes patriotic attire). 

That's how we rock forty-eight hours of mostly spontaneous fun.