Oh Roadtrip, How I've Missed Thee

It has been far too long since I expended a ridiculous amount of gas wandering the boring landscape that is the midwest - so this past weekend, I decided to do something about that. I decided to head to the promised land, also known as Rockford, IL, which happens to be the home of one of my best friends. It was going to be a day full of...well, I have no idea, because I'm a Gemini and I can't focus my attention on trifle things like decision making.

First of all, I'd like to say that I hope I get reincarnated as a weatherperson. You get paid to use confusing words like "precipitation", "index", and "partly sunny" while paying no attention to their accuracy, not to mention that you can wave your arms around like you're swatting imaginary flies and no one thinks twice about it (I, on the other hand, get looks as if I belong on a street corner with a jar and a coonskin hat). Plus I hear there are free donuts.

On the day of my trip, Mr. Weatherperson insisted that the cartoon sun on his imaginary map would be smiling, teeth and all. And yet when I got in my car, there were so many rain clouds that the sun may well have just exploded and I wouldn't have been the wiser. I was determined to make the best of it, so I put in my mixed CD and got to driving. Per my friends instructions, I was supposed to exit on I-39 to Rockford and 20 miles later I'd be on her doorstep. Simple enough. Yet half an hour later, I found myself still on I-39 and curious as to why the city of Rockford has not been mentioned on the signage. Sure, Rockford isn't exactly DeKalb, but it still deserves one measely sign, right? A quick phone call and I established that I was, in fact, on the right road - just heading in the wrong direction.

I drove back the half hour (which equalled a full hour of extra road time to those with less-than-average math skills) and the additional 20 miles to my original destination. Certainly, a trip that starts out this way is in desperate need of some burritos and a basket full of stale tortilla chips.

After lunch, we thought we'd head to Magnolia Festival. What is that, you ask? Hell if I know. But magnolias are pretty, and festivals are...festivals, so what is there not to like? Plenty, as it turns out. We saw a sign full of flowers (magnolias, presumably), and as I drove down the block to score a parking spot that didn't require a shoehorn I realized that we had actually passed the festival. Confused, we circled and went down the block again. The festival actually lived in the back parking lot of what I think had once been a pawn shop, or a tattoo parlor, or both perhaps. It was not even a full block long, and from what I gathered in my stalkerish circling of the neighborhood it consisted of a food tent, some hippie jewelry, and a bounce house.

Under any normal circumstance, I'd say give me a funnel cake and let's have at it. However, Magnolia Festival also required a $5 entrance fee. Common Goddesses tend to be cheapskates as well, so that scored it a big thumbs down. With an infant that was getting more and more impatient with every repeated trip around the block, we decided to move on to Plan B. The mall. Probably a poor choice, since we really had no desire to go into any stores (cheapskate, remember?). And combined with the fact that there were more tweens there than a Jonas Brothers concert and that I was being slowly suffocated by the cologne smell eminating from Abercrombie, we decided to forgo Plan B too.

After much deliberation in the CherryVale Mall parking lot, my friend and I opted to skip the tour de Rockford and just do what we do best - rent a terrible horror flick and point out all of the idiosyncrasies.

Bad weather, a great friend, and The 8th Plague. Ahhh yes, THERE'S the roadtrip I've so desperately needed!