The "My Big City Child Now Lives in a Little City - lol", edition

iPod shuffled to The Stylistics, "People Make The World Go Round".  Lol. Where are the Stylistics. All I hear is Russell Thompkins, not that I'm complaining. His voice is so smooth.  Well, my child is officially grown....or something.  We spent the last week moving her to her new home. {smile....cry}.

We left Tuesday morning around 9:30 AM. I thought it was a 6 hour drive, but I didn't account for the change to central time zone (d'oh!). It is 7 hours, if we don't stop to eat. But we stop to eat. 2 cars, 3 drivers. 1st leg, I drove the Explorer, Shawn drove her Focus, with Dad as passenger. The longest Shawn had driven was to Lansing and back. (Pat = over protective mom). We switched out a little past Battle Creek.  2nd leg, I'm still driving, but gain Shawn as my passenger, Brian gets the Focus (hehe). Driving through Indiana/Chicago was a non-event, just a LOT of trucks. Stevie Wonder, "Superwoman".  Relaxing song. :)  The 3rd leg is just south of Chicago, Brian driving Pat in the Explorer (did you see what I did there?), and Shawn solo in her Focus. Champaign-Urbana is about 2 hours south of Chicago. 

Once we were going south on I-57, we were treated to corporate corn and soybean farms....for as far as you could see.  No trees, maybe a house in the distance.  Definitely big silos and trains with dozens of grain cars, but corn...corn..corn fields all the way to the horizon. Corn.  Lol.  Shawn's professor from Wayne State did a Google Earth satelite view of Champaign/Urbana. Notice all the green surrounding the cities (population of the to combined is appoximately 100,000). That green is corn fields...with some soybean fields tossed in.  I've included some photos for ya'. 

We arrive around 4:30...or was it 5:30?  Depends on the time zone. Lol. We check into the hotel, drop of the luggage and race off to the Walmart in Urbana.  So yeah, the store was in the middle of a corn field. Lol. What tickled me more was the bus stop with the corn field just across the street. Shawn says that Walmart is bigger.  We scope out what to get and price check. You know, my kid was the anti-Walmart person, until now, that we needed to stay within a budget. Lol. Anyway, we had a list, made a plan for the next day.  We went to dinner, checked to see where I'd have my dialysis treatment was located (just north of campus).  For disclosure purposes, we can go from one end of town to the other in about 20 minutes. Lol lol.  That being said, there were 2 Walmarts, a mall with Macy's, Penney's, and Sears. They also have a fabulous public transportation system. 

Signing off with "Always and Forever", Heatwave.  The classic sing along song, no matter if you can carry a tune or not. Lol. Enjoy your Monday. :-)