Illinois can be pretty. Sometimes.

Day two of NaBloWriMo! I feel like I am that guy who has the show where he gets dropped into the jungle with just the clothes on his back and a match (and video equipment) and he has to survive for 7 days. Someone dropped me at this blog on October 1 and told me I have to pull @%$# out of my keister for 31 days in a row.

So I drove to take my dad to the urologist yesterday and he lives most of the way to Iowa. I drove through all manner of prairie to get out there, plus I took a wrong turn and had to drive all the way through Rockford, which added another hour to my time. Trust me, you don't want to drive all the way through Rockford. You don't want to drive an eighth of the way through Rockford.

When I finally got out of Rockford, I did take a route that was truly lovely. Route 2 goes through some beautiful forests and along a river on a windy path. It looks like some parts of California but without the hills. But it's also painstakingly slow. So even though it's a direct route, it's slower than the tollway. After nearly 8 hours in the car (almost 4 hours each way), I was about as stir crazy as you can get. I was a mess. I got lost in the Chicago burbs on the way back and had to download a one-time use GPS program onto my cell phone to get me the last 20 miles or so. So at 10pm after being by myself driving for most of the day and night, I must have hit that Talk button on my phone about 45 times. Even after I knew where I was going, I kept hitting the button just so I could hear the GPS say things like, "Continue on IL-31 for 1.1 miles. Then turn Left." Sure, I could have listened to more of the radio, but that nice lady was talking just to me.

I have to do more of this driving back and forth until my dad's medical issues are more stabilized. That means at least two more trips out there in the next couple of weeks and then who knows. I guess I'm in that ... what do you call it? ... sandwich generation now.