Catching Up

Hello from TC, where it's been unseasonably warm! Beautiful, sunny weather has followed me all the way across the country these past 10 days...but I think my luck is about to change, as I see tomorrow's high is 52 (as opposed to 70 today), and snow is forecast for the weekend. Oh, well; it was great while it lasted.

Backing up a little bit to my last travel day, I want to comment that while I was completely happy and satisfied with Motel 6, Mom and I were forced to upgrade for our last night to La Quinta, the only pet-friendly place in Peru, Illinois. Wow! Though we really didn't need the iron and ironing board, and didn't use the fitness room or indoor pool, everything was just so NICE! It was definitely a treat to spoil ourselves. (Thanks for the link to pet-friendly places, Allison.)

Heading out from Peru, we stopped at Starved Rock, a beautiful and interesting rocky outcropping/state park near Ottawa, Illinois. Mom used to go there a lot with her crazy friends when they all lived in Ottawa, and they would climb straight up the side. Legend has it that a bunch of Illini Indians retreated to the top of the rock while being chased by the Ottawa Indians, and they preferred to starve up there rather than the surrender. Eventually, the Ottawa came up and finished off what was left of them, and then some European explorers happened by, saw the carnage, and the story became known. Another story about this rock involves a beautiful young Indian maiden throwing herself off it when her true love took up with someone else.

No one knows what really happened, but it makes for some interesting tales. And, by the way, the Illini Indians were being chased by the Ottawa because one of them had killed Chief Pontiac, the leader of the Ottawas. So I guess they really shouldn't have done that in the first place.

After Starved Rock, Mom and I took a trip down Mom's Memory Lane in Ottawa, Illinois. We wanted to locate the schools where she had taught, and my secret agenda was to see the church where my mom and dad got married. (I didn't know if Mom would want to see it given the state of the union that followed.)

We wandered around town in the car and almost immediately found Lincoln School, where Mom had taught third grade. It was quite a bit bigger than she remembered it. More wandering, and we found ourselves at a park in the middle of town. Mom recognized this as the park in which Lincoln and Douglas had their famous first debate. We walked around and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors and foliage, and Mom was surprised to see a huge fountain in the middle of the park with two statues in gold of Lincoln and Douglas. She was SURE that they were originally on the side of the park, and not in a fountain.

Eventually we found the site of the original monument. A large boulder marks the exact spot where the debate really took place, next to two now-empty bases for statues. So Mom was vindicated, and quite satisfied that her memory is still intact.

As we left the park, we looked up and across the street, and what did we see but Christ Episcopal Church. Yes, right across from the park was the church where my mom and dad got married. I took a picture and after one comment about yep, right here is where it happened, we moved on. Relatively painless, after all.

You know, the wedding of your parents takes on mythic proportions when you're a kid. You see the wedding photos in their special albums with the pearly white covers...your mom is all dressed up, your dad is dapper, both of them are impossibly young. You've looked at them so many times, so it's kind of amazing to see the site where all of this actually occurred.

Anyway, we'd found one of Mom's schools, but not the other two. After some fruitless wandering up and down the streets of Ottawa, we looked for someone to ask, preferably someone old. We hit gold with a guy in a quick mart who remembered both of Mom's other schools and told us neither one of them existed anymore. One of them is a park, and one is a low-income housing high-rise. We managed to find the site of the old Washington School (now park) with the help of another senior citizen resident, snapped a pic, and left town contented.

We stayed that night with Judy, a friend of Mom's from a trip she took to China a few years ago. Thanks to both Judy and her dog, Chelsea, for making all of us welcome!

P.S. Picture number two is of me touching a mammoth tooth at the Starved Rock Visitor Center, over 10,000 years old (the tooth, not the visitor center). Oooooh!