My Trip to Ikea

Here's Kristin's new car, a Saturn Ion. We met up in Zeeland after church [I go to Bethel in Zeeland.]

Another look at the car. It's a really nice car.

Okay, when I was younger, and we still lived in Cleveland, the drive to my grandparents house in Chicago took 6+ hours. So the trek out there, (they lived in Alsip, near Chicago) was always a pretty big event. Anyway, for a number of years, I had this recurring dream (sometimes it was nightmareish, but never that bad) involving this long car trip. The basic idea was that in order to make it to their house, we had to cross a very, very long, narrow bridge that crossed over a giant gaping chasm. As I was afraid of heights, and of bridges at that time, this was not something I was jazzed about. Anyway, this bridge coming up is just what the dream bridge looked like (only the drea bridge was much bigger, obviously.)

And now we can see teh Chicago Skyline.

New Comiskey Park, home of the 2003 All-Star Game. They call it US Cellular Field, but that name is awful.

We're getting closer to downtown Chicago, and it's beautiful. The Sears tower is by far my favorite skyscraper.

The Sears tower. Isn't it lovely?

Here's Kristin, in the parking lot at Ikea. The other photos of her from the day were destroyed at her request.

And this is Ikea, way off in the distance. The parking lot was very full.

I was navigator. Here we are on the way back home. We had driven through downtown Chicago on teh way there (we took the Skyway), but had hit a lot of traffic, and wanted to avoid that. [Also, Kris wanted to avoid the craziness of inner city Chicago highway driving, which is understandable, even though she did a fine job on the drive out there.]. So I was finding a new route using this travel Atlas.

It was really easy. We just took 294 -> 80 -> 80/94 -> 196.

We drive near O'Hare. There were many planes.

"The Industrial Strip" The best name for a strip club ever.

When we drove to my grandparents place, there were landmarks tha ttold us we were getting near. They were [in order]: The Factory, the restaurant/bridge, and the Alsip watertower. Since we are driving back from Chicago, we're seeing them in reverse.

This is the Watertower. It was the most important one, as whoever said "I see the watertower!" first among us kids won. Won what? I don't know, but it was pretty important anyway... Like being the first one into a state... Kristin beat me 3-1 on this trip, but I smoked her on the trip to Florida.

Good Advice.

We bought a lot of stuff at Ikea, and some of it was heavy. I lost all feeling in my arms on the long walk back to the car while carrying this stuff. I got 2 shelf units, a coffee table, some metal coasters, and a funky extension cord/power outlet. Kristin got some leftover containers, a big clock/wall hanging thing that matches the other stuff she bought at Ikea the last time she went there, some candles, and some dry erase markers.

I forgot! Another landmark on the way was what we called "Bedrock". According to my geology class, this is the largest open pit limestone quary that still operates today. There was talk at one time of filling it in with reserve water from some river or something.. but it looks like that won't happen.

This is the bridge restaurant. It's been closed for repairs for a while now. It used to be a Burger King and a Chicken place.. and then they added a TCBY's as well. Right now, it's nothing.

And here we have the blue factory. This is the first sign we'd see on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's house. After 5 or so hours in the car, seeing these towers brought me pure joy. During Christmas, they turn on lights on the top to make it look like there are Christmas trees up there.you can kinda see them still.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I bought a rug at Ikea as well, for my cube. Isn't it nice? It is so much nicer than the cold, hard concrete floor. We work in an old warehouse.

This is the coffee table I bought. Our old one heeps fallign apart, as the legs are pretty much broken off. This one wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was cheap, and still way nicer than what we currently have.

Halfway through building the table.

Table done. It's nice.

Here is one of my cd shelves.

Here are all the pieces.

Half way done.

Done. It's tall.

And here we have my new setup, with old and new shelving units.