Day 31: Mission Accomplished

Well it took long enough, but today marks the end of the FWIA adventure. And without standing on an aircraft carrier in flight gear with a banner saying ‘Mission Accomplished’ to the world, I feel a little like George W. Bush did that day – just a little. I had to think for a minute as I wrote this, about where I was today. In truth it’s hard to believe I’ve managed to pack so much into such a tight schedule, and as I alluded to in my last posting, I’m having trouble keeping up. If memory serves I spent the night in Louisville, Kentucky and awoke on a bright, crisp and warm morning in what was a surprisingly beautiful part of the city. I was taken a-back by how nice a place Louisville was, and as I drove around the city after ducking away from my chosen breakfast spot because of the queues, it seemed like Louisville too was a city of suburbs and no soul on a Sunday morning. Starbucks did the trick again today and after wandering around the city some more, it was time to start the return journey to complete this fairly hectic trip off where I started.

My only goal today was to get back to Chicago, and to be honest it wasn’t much of a tall order. From downtown Louisville to downtown Chicago, you’re looking at a shade under 300 miles. To me that’s just an afternoon cruise at this stage. Honestly I surprised even myself by how much of that I could take; and I genuinely still love driving. So heading up to Indianapolis, I Googled somewhere for breakfast seeing as how I’d planned on spending the following few hours pushing to get back to Chicago early. What was thrown up was a place called ‘Patachou’ and taking Yelp at its word, I just headed straight there. After a few circles to find free parking I walked through the sliproad of the Westin and was greeted by the Indiana State Capitol building – another to add to the collection. ‘Patachou’ was not really what I expected, in this a day of unexpected goodness. My heart sank when I saw the douche-y looking waiters and waitresses with their hipster glasses and 3/4 skinny jeans trying to be something they were clearly not, and the menu didn’t read much better. But after digging up an edible treat suitable to my palette, I waited for the arrival of what you might call an ‘egg & bacon butty’, basically two soft fried eggs on a sourdough bread with cheese (it’s obligatory in America) and Indiana bacon. I was in heaven from the first bite. I was right back at my kitchen table in County Kerry – way back when eggs were eggs. Honestly, until you taste a proper egg that hasn’t been force grown to a timetable, you know the difference. This was the real deal, and the bacon wasn’t that wafer thin stuff that just crumbles away in your mouth, this was chewy and bacon-y. A real treat and one which I’m salivating over while recounting right now.

Outside in the sunny Indianapolis weather, I sat back into the ‘Avenger’ and took to the highways again. I’d had it in my head that if I made it out of Indiana’s largest city early in the day, I’d make a go at trying to get up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This was mainly to tag the state in my collection of states travelled, but also I had heard of Wisconsin in the movies as a place famous for cheese and dairy. In the West Wing for example, Donna Moss who plays the assistant to Josh Lyman the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, is from Wisconsin – it seems to be a homely place in the eyes of Hollywood. So I set it into the GPS and pulled out of Indianapolis, bound for Illinois and on to Wisconsin. As I approached the state line, I made an effort to photograph the sign and noted I was passing through Calumet City, the home of fictional brothers Jake and Elwood Blues in the Blues Brothers movie, shot almost entirely in the state of Illinois. But then, as I listened intently to the instructions given by the GPS, I noticed something that I hadn’t seen in a while, the antennae on the Willis (Sears) Tower came into view. As the road deck revealed the entire antenna array and the black columns of the building began to appear, I was suddenly struck by a powerful feeling – I’d done it. Honestly I wasn’t prepared at all for the feeling, and it moved me. I’m not afraid to say I shed a tear of joy and pride that I’d managed to set out to do and complete a journey that some people didn’t think was possible – and if I’m completely honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d make the entire journey either. I’d built in a safety net by choosing Chicago as a starting point, giving myself a quick return if it looked as though closer to the end of the allotted time, I wasn’t going to make it. But I had made it – and with time to spare. So much time in fact that I managed to get in more of the additional journey than I’d planned also, visiting as far south as Tennessee and as far west as Memphis.

And as I wound my way up through Chicago, oblivious to the traffic ahead, I sat back to focus on my final sprint – Milwaukee. Wisconsin isn’t all that far from Chicago, and Milwaukee itself is only an hour and a half from the Windy City. So it was a nice treat to not only tag the state but to visit a new city also. Just about the only thing I knew about Milwaukee is that the Art Museum was featured in the movie Transformers 3 as the location where Mr. Witwicky’s girlfriend worked alongside Dr. McDreamy. But as I made my final approach into Milwaukee I noticed many churches, older buildings and some sky scrapers. As the GPS navigated me down some streets I noticed I said ‘wow’ when I approached Wisconsin street, noted the Irish pub to my left and searched for a parking space. I’m not entirely sure why but I almost immediately fell in love with Milwaukee. It’s such a surprisingly beautiful city, which isn’t the sprawling mess that most cities are, and is just really pretty. It too shares the lakefront with its bigger sister city Chicago further south, but Milwaukee seems much more manageable. I was gutted I hadn’t come sooner in the day or even bothered to look into it further before arriving, but alas all I could manage was a quick walk around and a drive along the shoreline. Some photos later I was back on the road to Chicago having booked a hotel near the airport. My HotelTonight discount knocked the price down to €12 for the night, so that wasn’t the worst end to the trip either. And to crown it all, I discovered a White Castle burger joint across the street from the hotel, checking off that box from the movie Harold & Kumar pretty nicely. After emptying the Avenger for the last time, and checking with the receptionist how the airport shuttle worked, I decided to hand back the stupid car in favour of being able to have breakfast in the hotel in the morning before being whisked to the airport by someone else rather than sitting in traffic. All told I spent about an hour or more doing this, before coming back to the hotel to do a quick spot of laundry before packing up and writing this. I must leave my ice cooler here though, so the chambermaid will have a nice present to bring home to her family tomorrow night. She’ll also get some Tide pods (detergent) and a shirt I bought without trying on which turned out to be mislabeled as a small.

In the end though, this is the end. For this journey at least, I’ve put down some serious time behind the wheel, and seen a lot of a country I’ve really grown attached to. I’ll go through the analysis in more detail in the next few posts to close out the site, but right now I’m focused on a more personal vacation for the next few days which will go undocumented. I’m rather looking forward to that part because while it’s been a wonderful experience sharing this trail of breadcrumbs with you, it does take a rather hefty chunk out of the day. So for now, I bid you adieu, and look out for the post-game analysis in the coming days and weeks. Thanks for stopping by.