Dreams Really Do Come True!

Day Two started SUPERRR early yesterday, being out of our nice/sketchy hotel by 8 am (which is a shocker for us.) We left our hotel and started trekking to find our next destination, Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Well, we found the park with no problems from our GPS, but it just brought us to their headquarters, which looked like a little shack in the middle of the woods. So we drove around the park, hoping it would magically tell us where to go. It didn't. We finally stopped at one of the visitor centers called the Boston Store and asked a park ranger. After some more adventuring to find Brandywine Falls, we finally found it. It was quite beautiful :)

Yay we found it! We wanted to point to make sure you knew we were there... :)

Afterwards, we hopped back into the car to head up to Purdue University to see one of Elyse's friends from the Backlot Tour (Elyse's favorite place in Disney...) On our way, we saw a lot of wind farms. And cows. And farms. I'm pretty sure that we drove straight through the Universe of Energy. (Although, don't forget, according to Bill Nye, wind isn't always the best form of energy!) Anywho, Ohio and Indiana are super lame states to drive through, they are super flat. Whatever, we made it to Purdue and Tim showed us around the campus for a little while before we headed out to see if Chicago lived up to Elyse's dreams...

(apparently Purdue is super sexist like this. lame)

Well, they did. She was literally jumping for joy when we drove into the city, and she hasn't been upset by anything yet. I'm really trying to bring her down because I think it would be amusing, but I have a feeling I won't be able. We spent the night with another Disney friend, Catherine. We didn't explore downtown Chicago, but we enjoyed a few places within walking distance of Catherine's apartment. Basically we did a bar crawl, if you count two bars and only two beers a bar crawl. We're getting old.

(just the view from Catherine's window, nbd)

We went to Mickey's, appropriately.

We are currently in Starbucks using their internet, and we are going to head down to a free zoo to get a great view of the Chicago skyline. Yay for the city, its kind of great...


BTW- we are in Central time now, and Elyse is constantly confused since she hasn't changed her watch and most likely won't since she's going back to the east coast. Also, bathroom count for the overall trip so far - Lisa at 5, Elyse at 26. Yep, I'm not joking.