Ready for Classes

I got my class rosters today. Are you interested? I'm teaching four courses--2 reading courses, 1 speaking/listening course, and 1 essay writing course. My largest class, the essay writing course, has 19 students. My smallest class has 13 students but there are 2 seats open, so I may have 15 by the time classes start on Tuesday.

I've got class schedules and syllabi ready for 3 of the 4 courses. One of the reading courses will be developed once I know the students' reading preferences. The only thing I know for sure about that one is that we will be reading The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman.

Today I was introduced as the new ESL Institute staff member in front of most of the faculty and staff of the College of Liberal Studies. I received a light applause. Then I ate the free lunch.

My coworkers? My unofficial mentor is Patrick, who graduated from Beloit College back in 1989, the anagram of my graduation year. We're getting along very well because of our similar experiences. His first job after Beloit was also teaching English in Japan, but he was in a better organization--the JET Program. His wife is Turkish. And Jenevieve's first independent experience abroad was in Istanbul. There are more similarities, but that's all for now.

Like all my other jobs, I have entered this one as the youngest employee. I think it's safe to say that all of my coworkers are 40+. I get along with my office mate, who teaches similar classes as me. This will be very handy as we can exchange ideas and helpful hints about our students. Across the hall from me is another person I get along with because of our shared liberal mindset and fondness for the sixties. Patrick's office-mate was hired at the same time as him, last year. I finally got to talk to her today at the meeting/luncheon. We both share experiences living and working in the Mid-Atlantic Region, she in Allentown and me in Baltimore. And then there's our busy, busy director who I haven't had much time to speak to since I was hired. We will be attending a picnic at her home in a few weeks.

The students? They are busy getting their papers together and getting advice from our experienced instructors. I met a few of them in the past few days. It appears that the majority of them are Chinese, followed by Arabs and Japanese. After looking at my roster, I recognized a total of 3 Koreans in my 4 courses. There are also quite a few Vietnamese students. I didn't recognize any Russian names on my list, but I know there's at least one around.

Tomorrow I will finish preparing for classes by making lesson plans for the first week. This shouldn't take too long because the first day is just full of introductions and laying down the law. I am quite excited.

Video Games

Oriented

Orientation week started yesterday. The only things I was informed about were fringe benefits. I have 6 days to choose a health care provider and 30 days to make up my mind on other items like life insurance, tax sheltered annuities, and many other things I barely have any idea about.

The good news is that we have already chosen our health care provider, our next door neighbors, Gundersen Lutheran Hospital. They gave us all the literature about each health care provider in the state of Wisconsin. I was surprised to find that this is one of the better health care systems in the state.

Here is an old aerial view of the complex. I know it's old because our apartment is not in the picture. Our building is twice as long now with an extension towards the river. You would be able to see the apartment on the plot of land next to the last big building on the left. This picture also shows how close we are to the Mississippi River. During the floods, the waters can creep into the lower ground which is behind the mass sea of parking lots.

Back to orientation, today I will meet our students briefly for the first time. Most of the day will be spent on grading their entrance essays. I will also get my university ID and website photo taken today. Still I need to find out how to get the parking permit.

As far as getting to know the campus, I only know where the library, the student center, and the recreation center is. Of course, I know where my office and classrooms are. I'm blogging this in the morning, so I will blog an update later.

Step On No Pets

Taco cat is a palindrome like the title of this blog. Both vaguely refer to our new addition to the family. Ego left Chicago via previous owner, my sister, for Madison. He stayed there Saturday night and Sunday morning. Around noon, Jenevieve and I arrived in Madison to deliver him to his new home in La Crosse.

Here is a picture of his first day in our apartment. Yes, that's my leg and those are Jenevieve's scissors pointing him out for you, in case you couldn't find him in the picture.

Upon his arrival, Ego received a new name. Instead of being just Ego, brother of Id, he is now named Dima Ego Slagoski. To not worry my sister, we kept Ego as his middle name. We also made sure his new name had a long "e" sound with two syllables so he could still recognize his old name. What does Dima mean? Dima is the affectionate name for Dimitri in Russia. It is the masculine form of the Greek goddess Demeter, the earth mother. Dimitri is also the name of a king of Syria from the Bible. But he is not Dimitri, he is Dima.

But if you knew him as Ego, that's still his name too. He assured us that he won't get confused as long as each person is consistent in calling him one of the two names. Then he told me that some people prefer to go by their middle names at times. For example, Mickey Dolenz's full name is George Michael Dolenz.

Dima chose a good day to come from Chicago to La Crosse because the Chicago Tribune just published Wisconsin's Top 10 Places. And La Crosse came second after the Wisconsin Dells. If you'd like to read the article, click here. He got to see both places today.

And just as I was starting to write this blog, our ear-piercing fire alarm screamed throughout the premises. Dima was just getting comfortable when we had to whisk him outside again in his brother's carrier. And then Dima initiated me into his ownership by slashing my chest with his back claws. So now I'm his and have the marks to prove it.

P.S. There was smoke but no fire. We're OK...except for our ears.

Father & Brother

Yesterday, we drove up to Chippewa Falls to meet up with my dad before going off to Stanley (city not person) to visit my brother. It was our first day not doing anything to unpack or improve our living conditions.

We left after 8:30am and took Highway 53 straight to Chippewa Falls. We drove some unfamiliar country in cloudy conditions. It was a pleasant drive with winding roads, hilly scenery, and patches of light fog. In 2.5 hours, we reached our destination: Higher Grounds Coffee House & Eatery in downtown Chippewa Falls as pictured.

Just as we left our car to walk to the coffee shop, Dad pulled up with impeccable timing. For two hours, we sat and had brunch. Major topics included Dad's project of transforming a church into a house and the topic of this blog, moving in. It was almost a year to the day since I saw him last in Washington, DC. We were just about to move to Russia while he just moved back from Kiribati, a large group of small islands in the center of the Pacific Ocean. So Russia and Kiribati were also discussed.

Then we spent the next hour exploring Chippewa Falls--downtown, Irvine Park and its zoo, and a antique store. Downtown we met a woman with similar interests as us. She shared us a story of a local artist who she admired, an intellectual who left Chippewa Falls for New York City and returned in the 1970s to paint for himself, but attracted a lot of admirers who loved his work.

In Irvine Park we took a walk around a loop road that started out buggy and ended up muggy with drizzling rain. We were disappointed to see no bears where the map had indicated, but were happy to later find them in a much more accommodating facility. Also we explored a cave that involved a couple of steps inside to see darkness. In the zoo section, we saw those bears, deer, chickens, sheep, donkeys, a red-tailed hawk, a peacock, a pot-bellied pig, cougars, bobcats, owls, monkeys, and doves. By the time we got to the doves, the drizzle turned to rain. Fortunately, our cars were nearby.

It was time to visit Josh in his new "home" in Stanley. It was only a 20 minute drive along Highway 29, the road that divides Northern Wisconsin from the rest of the state. It was our first time to visit the medium security correctional institution. On a pamphlet of the city, the prison was Stanley's major source of income. I wonder how thankful the residents are.

After passing through the many gates inside and out, we finally got to our table. This was one of the improvements from his previous maximum security place. Now we could actually sit around a table instead of sit along a row of chairs. We sat around for about 20 minutes before Joshua showed up.

Well, his hair was much longer than it was the last time we saw him. It was definitely a year's length of growth, although he didn't have a year of facial hair. He seemed to be much more relaxed and less anxious than his previous self. There could be many factors that play into this--age, experience, perspective, job, etc.

We talked for about 90 minutes before starting to play a lopsided game of pinochle. What did we talk about? Dad's project, Josh's new environment, our new environment, politics, family, new friends, Kiribati, Russia, and computers. I'll spare details for non-blogging conversation. There were no awkward pauses or silence, but that's nearly impossible with Dad around anyway. In summary, it was one of the better visits with Josh as he seems very hopeful of a release in year or so.

Before departing Stanley, we had dinner at the new family restaurant at the interchange called Lumberjacks. We ate our satisfactory meals while continuing on the same topics. The Packers game was a little distracting as it was on a TV above my dad's head. By 8:00pm we had finished our meals and conversations and parted ways with more insight to current family situations.

New Furniture

Here is a picture of 1/2 of our new furniture. The love-seat and end table are not pictured. The sofa feels more comfortable than it looks.

As you can see, the living room is not decorated much yet. In the corner, there is evidence that we still have to unpack.

The furniture arrived on schedule, only a few minutes after we were wondering how long it would take them to deliver. I felt strange not having to move the furniture in myself.

After a little bit more unpacking and decorating, the living room should be done. I believe it will be done by the time our housewarming party begins.

Are we finished with purchasing furniture? Not really. We still would like another bookshelf or buffet table, a cabinet in the bathroom, and a filing cabinet in the guest room/office. I hope we will at least have the bathroom cabinet by the time the party starts.

Flash Floods

It's rainy season in La Crosse. Although Wisconsin doesn't have an official rainy season, it has been raining more than the rainy seasons I experienced in Korea. I have to wait one more week to see if it matches the Japanese rainy season.

We experienced our first flash flood since the Karasu-gawa River washed out the floodplains in Takasaki back in the summer of 2000. It seems our Minnesota neighbors got it worse with mudslides and a few deaths. Over here in La Crosse, the downtown had flooded intersections and our apartment basement had waterfalls on the north wall. That has unsettled some of us new residents. We are aware that construction isn't finished yet. But should the foundation be the first thing to complete?

Nothing was traumatic, but we experienced a strange partial power outage in our apartment building. It seemed like only 1/3 of the power went out. Our 1/3 of the hallway was completely black, but 2/3 of our apartment was out. Curiously, we had electricity for our refrigerator, our TV/cable/DVD player, and half of our bedroom. The rest of the apartment was out, including our phone service. Luckily we just powered up our brand new cellphones.

The power went out at around 10pm yesterday and was restored at 10am today. When it went out, the lights flickered for a minute before completely going off. That was a first for me. Usually they just go completely out instead of a minute of deciding if it should stay on or not.

So according to our neighbor, the basement was apparently flooded overnight. I checked out this morning and saw most of it dry but the NW corner was still very wet with a little fountain coming out the north wall. The basement hasn't been inspected yet, so no cars have been allowed to park down there and nobody can use the storage facilities yet. Only the media center is open for use and that was not flooded at all.

The forecast is the same for today with flash flood watches all day. But the storm has apparently moved south for the time being. Thunderstorms are forecasted through Friday, so we haven't seen the last of this fun weather. It's not like Hurricane Dean is going to come up here.

Walking Tour

This morning I took a 90-minute walking tour of La Crosse from our apartment to downtown and back. Today was the best day for such a walk because it was the first day with the high in the 70s and the last day with no thunderstorms in the forecast for the next week.

At 9:30am, I left our apartment for the south branch of the La Crosse Public Library. I walked east on Green Bay Street to 16th Street. That 10-minute stretch was partially residential and partially light industrial, and reminded me of my many walks in Kenosha. By the way, I had shade for nearly the entire walk downtown as this city is very green.

From Green Bay Street, I turned left and headed north on 16th Street. The library was only a few blocks up. Unfortunately it was closed, scheduled to open a little later today. I didn't take a close look at their hours, but the either opened at 10am or 12pm, depending on the day. We just went to the library earlier this week, so there was no need for me to wait around.

I intended to walk back home from the library but I was surprised that it only took 15-20 minutes to get there, and I still wanted to walk. After walking one block towards our apartment, I remembered the university's address being on the 1700 block of State Street, basically a straight walk north from here. So on 15th Street, I decided to head north.

Between Farnam Street and State Street, the houses looked nicer and nicer. This walk was the most pleasant and only took about 30 minutes. I passed by a park, a rummage sale, and a couple of mansions. The greenery was also thicker on this walk too, reflecting the well aged neighborhood. No, I didn't bring the camera, but I saw the house that's pictured here. I uploaded from a web page of another resident.

I reached State Street and walked east a couple blocks to my campus. It is still summer vacation and most of the faculty was gone, but some students and administrators lingered around. Most people there were maintenance workers. I got to the 3rd floor of the main building to stop in at my office. As I took out my keys to unlock my door, I realized that my office keys were in my office bag at home. No office visit, but I could still use one of the many university restrooms.

As I was leaving campus, I decided that I should follow State Street east downtown. There I could find our credit union, the city bus terminal, the post office, and the pet store. The university is on 17th and State and downtown starts on 7th Street, so it was only 10 blocks or 15 minutes to get there. The walk on State Street mostly consisted of housing for students and and some light commercial buildings. It felt a little bit like a miniature Madison there.

When I reached downtown, I managed to find everything except the pet store. It was supposed to be at the corner of Main Street and 4th Street, but I found a vacated store which may have been it. Oh well. So I continued walking south through downtown on 4th Street. The best thing on 4th Street is Fayze's with its wonderful breakfasts. We haven't had breakfast there since we visited La Crosse with my mom nearly 2 months ago. A few weeks ago, we ate dinner there with Nicole. Their breakfasts are better!

Once I had downtown behind me, I turned left on Division Street in order to walk through the residential sections of 6th Street. On Sunday, I walked down 5th Street which was shadier than 4th Street, but wasn't so nice compared to the rest of La Crosse. 6th Street was an improvement upon 5th Street, but not as nice as the 15th Street walk. I passed by a couple of parks and churches.

6th Street ends at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital where 7th Street converges with 4th Street to become South Avenue. 5th and 6th Streets just end there. The rest of the walk provided little shade, but I was only a few blocks from home. I walked south on South Avenue passing the hospital on both sides of me, crossing Green Bay Street again, and came to the 2100 block of South Avenue, our apartment just beyond a very big parking lot for the hospital.

Before coming home, I made a pit stop at our mailbox to find our corrected checkbook and checks in the mail...and our cellphones! What a rewarding day, and it's only 12:30pm as I finish this posting.

Living Room

Today we took the scenic route to Arcadia to look at more sofas. We ended up buying a living room set that will be delivered on Tuesday.

Most of the furniture we were looking at in La Crosse was from Ashley Furniture, which is headquartered just 30 miles north in Arcadia. So finally the weather was pleasant for us to take a scenic ride via Winona, MN with the windows down. The views of the bluffs, the rivers, and rolling farmland were spectacular. Parts of it reminded me of Russia, Japan, and Pennsylvania. It's great to have such wonderful countryside so nearby.

When we got to Ashley Furniture we did not intend to go home with a purchase. But we finally found a living room set at the right price that seemed a good fit for our new home. We didn't take pictures, so I'll have to describe in thousands of words.

The sofa and love-seat are green with dark hard wood legs. The coffee table and end tables are also made of dark hard wood to match the aforementioned legs. When we sat on the sofa and love-seat, it felt like we were sitting on green marshmallows. However the cushions tasted far from marshmallows. The coffee table was oval in shape, so there will be no sharp corners for a potential young one to lose or at least injure an eye or two. The end tables were also curvaceous.

This means our current yard sale love-seat will be moved to the guest/office room. Now Jenevieve can do her online work and administer reiki to another person at the same time.

So by Tuesday our living room will be nearly complete. All we have to do next is decorate the walls.

Slow Road to Cellphones

About 3 weeks ago, I ordered cellphones so they would arrive before us in La Crosse. They did not. Last week, I contacted the company and they said they put the order on hold until I gave them my previous address to this one.

The Westminster address was on there, but it wasn't the previous address. I also gave them my mother's Madison address, but they didn't have that on their database. So I gave them our Baltimore address of 4.5 years ago. They said that was the oldest address on their database. There was one address remaining. I asked if they had any overseas addresses, and they said no. I remembered that Jenevieve had forwarded mail to Nicole's address when we moved to Korea, but they didn't have her address either. Just as they were about to lose hope, I gave them my Kenosha address.

Yes, that was the one. That's all they needed. That was last Thursday. Now all they had to do was ship the phones. We were told they would be here as late as yesterday. They never arrived.

I planned to call them this evening if UPS never came. Jenevieve saw the UPS truck, but there was nothing waiting for us in our mailbox. Just as we were complaining, we got a phone call from the cellphone company. Now they need me to fax evidence that we live here in La Crosse before they ship out the phones.

Once they receive the fax, it will take 24-48 hours to process the order. Then it will take another 24-48 hours to send the phones. The shipping service does not operate on weekends, so it may be another week before we get the cellphones we wanted before we arrived here.

Cataloging

What are we doing now? We are slowly unpacking our books and cataloging them on an online database. Once we've finished cataloging the books, then I'll tell you more about the website.

We decided to go with the Dewey decimal system instead of the Library of Congress' system of cataloging books. In this picture you can see the 2 piles in front of the vacuum cleaner as part of the 900 series. The longer row of books is the 800 series, literature. Doesn't this library work seem fun?

Jenevieve started working yesterday. She rated 20 non-native speakers yesterday and has rated 18 today. All this is done online so I barely have time to access the Internet these days. I could, of course, go to my office and "work" there. I still have 2 weeks of "free" time.

On the subject of libraries again, we finally got our library cards. The La Crosse main library is much better than Westminster's only library. I haven't been to the Kenosha Southwest library for quite a while, so I can't compare my Kenosha library of today with La Crosse's library. In case you were wondering, I checked out a bunch of books about motoring and bicycling tours in Wisconsin. The La Crosse main library also uses the Dewey decimal system.

Back at home, our laptop has barely any storage space left. We must buy more soon, and we will. We got our new checks today, but the address was wrong, so we had to return them. We will have to fill out all the forms again later this week. Then we have to shred all of our unused checks from La Crosse and Westminster with our bare hands.

After nearly a month of ordering cellphones, they still haven't arrived yet. I last spoke with the company on Thursday who said they would be shipped out that evening and should arrive by today. The sun has set and the phones are not here. It doesn't really matter now. We are both at home and have an operable landline.

Tomorrow we were going to buy a can opener because we needed to use one twice today. But one finally turned up. Too late for use but just before we were going to by a much nicer one. This can opener looks like it's seen better days.

Abrupt end!

La Crosse, part 1

We've been surprised at how little time we've had to explore the city. Most of our time has been spent unpacking and shopping for essential items and furniture. I will describe what we have experienced of the city so far.

Although our apartment and its building is very nice, the surrounding area doesn't have much.

• To the east is probably the least scenic stretch of the Great River Road. Across that street is a sausage factory, a Pepsi warehouse, and some more light industrial complexes. The good news is that there is little or no pollution.
• To the north is one of the city's bigger landmarks, Gunderson Lutheran Hospital, just across the exempt railroad tracks. Ambulance sirens are mute when the windows are shut.
  
• Our windows face south overlooking our car parked in the parking lot. We usually park it outside of our window, and rarely does anyone park next to us. Beyond the parking lot is public storage. So maybe we should put our extra bowls and bedsheets there.
• The west is the best with a short walking trail to a part of the Mississippi River. Although the trail is just behind the apartment building, a steep downward slope prevents you from accessing it. One must walk around the hospital's airlift/helipad building and through its extensive parking lot to get to the trail. We just walked that trail today. It's not long enough.

What about the rest of the city? We are slightly south of the city center. The city center, located around Viterbo University, is probably were the lowest rent is. The downtown area is north of the city center. It's where the La Crosse River meets the Mighty Mississippi.

It takes about 5-10 minutes to drive downtown. All the nice local shops and restaurants are found there. Pearl Street has been nominated as one of America's hometown main streets. It's certainly more vibrant than downtown Kenosha but not as cosmopolitan/academic as State Street in Madison. I could go on longer about downtown La Crosse, so I'll save it for a later posting.

Most of the recognizable chains of Everytown USA can be found in the nearby city Onalaska where the mall is. La Crosse has a smaller version of this urban sprawl just a few miles south on South Avenue which becomes Mormon Coulee Road. There you can find the city's largest supermarket, Quillan's IGA Foodfest. Culver's and Ace Hardware are also in the vicinity as well as one of the city's cinemas. Just on the southern tip of the city is Wal-Mart. Just far enough away.

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is about a mile or two east of the downtown. The campus is in the perfect spot for viewing the bluffs. It's about 2.5 miles from our apartment, so I'll be walking to work when the weather is agreeable.

For a wider perspective of the city, it doesn't have much room to expand east or west. So it's a long city from north to south. The 3 major roads run north-south. One of them is Hwy 53 which is South Avenue for a while. It's the Great River Road in La Crosse. Another is Hwy 35 which cuts through the center of the city. And the other is Losey Blvd. which runs along the bluff-side of the city.

To Have and To Have Not

At this point, all we need to unpack are books. Nearly everything else has been unpacked. This unpacking business has given us a lot of surprises. This gives me the opportunity for more list mania!

Missing

1. Cookie sheets (we had them in Baltimore)
2. Muffin pans (same as above)
3. Bread pans (same as above)
4. VCR (sold in 2003)
5. Cutting board (may have been thrown out)
6. Can opener (I unpacked 3, gave 1 to Nicole, and the other 2 disappeared)
7. Microwave (I don't know what happened to that)
8. Keyboard synthesizer (lent to Elijah for practice)

Too Much

1. Bowls - 6-8 sets of them
2. T-shirts - from Beloit, Japan, Baltimore, Korea, etc.
3. Pens - haven't counted
4. Silverware - enough to feed 20 people
5. Bed sheets - enough for a family of 4
6. Hats - over 10
7. Towels - more than we remembered we had
8. Boxes - moldy ones had to be thrown out

Why do we have too much? We've been overseas for 7 of the past 10 years. This is the first time we have all of our American, Japanese, Korean, and Russian things together. You can imagine how many souvenirs we have. It's hard to remember how many bowls we had in Baltimore when we bought bowls in Korea. I don't even know how we inherited so many bedsheets. There are some T-shirts I haven't worn in over 5 years. It's also strange to live without towels for 5 years and then have a large amount to use. (We used our robes as towels in Korea and Russia.)

Hats? We got 3 hats as gifts in Russia, 1 souvenir hat from Jeju Island, 1 souvenir hat from Saipan, 2 Communist hats from China, 1 gift hat from Chincoteague Island, and Jenevieve has lots of hats from her college years. Before 2004, I owned one hat at a time. My childhood Brewers cap is still with me. Finally that cap has found its home in this refitted brewery loft apartment.

So it's strange to have too much of some unnecessary items and not enough of some essential ones. We don't know anyone around here to make an honest trade.

The Day

Starting from where I left off in the previous post, Jenevieve and I arrived 30 minutes later than planned in Madison on August 1st. The main cause of the delay was a lengthy back-up of traffic on northbound I-90 just outside of Beloit.

We stopped at my mom's house to pick up our car and other things as well as to eat lunch. Our friend Nicole met up with us to drive the rental truck the rest of the way, while Jenevieve drove our new car for the first time. Nicole wasn't ready when we called her, so we waited for about an hour.

During this hour, the mail arrived. I was shocked that the mailman needed my signature instead of my mom's. After signing my name, he delivered the 3 packages I mailed off from Samara six weeks ago. Those packages were the only things left "unfinished" from my Fellowship in Russia. The last package I sent from Russia never arrived in the United States, so I was worried about the same fate for these packages, which contained hard to replace teaching materials from the US and Korea. The timing was impeccable.

Also in the mail was a coupon for Internet, telephone, and cable--it was just what we were looking for. All our previous attempts to find a good deal turned up with nothing. That's the service we're using right now.

Nicole drove up on her bike and carrier. It took another 30 minutes for us to get ready and refreshed, and we were on the road again by 3pm. We decided on the route of highway 12 to I-90 at Lake Delton. While driving through Baraboo, we left Nicole behind as the weight of the truck kept her from accelerating to the speed limit.

Jenevieve and I arrived at our new home at 5:30. For the next 30 minutes we signed our lease and got updated on the progress of the new apartment building.

• Only 8 apartments were still available.
• The storage facilities should be ready by the end of August.
• Underground parking should be ready by the end of August.
• The security systems were working.
• The Internet cafe won't be working for a while.
• The media center is functioning.
• The community center is not open yet.

By the end of those 30 minutes, Nicole arrived. So all 3 of us happily walked to our new apartment to find our refrigerator standing outside of our door. After complaining we found out that the freezer may have frost problems and we should give it a few weeks to see if it occurs. So far, so good.

Then we spent the next 3 hours or so unpacking the car and 1/3 of the truck. We all slept soundly on the floor of our new apartment that night.

Cool, Calm, and Connected

Ah! We finally are connected to the real world (phone and email) and the fantasy world (cable and some Internet). You decide about this blog.

Let me tell you about the first two days after disembarking from Westminster, Maryland. Jenevieve drove all the way. The toughest parts of the drive were Highway 30 in Pennsylvania and the Chicago Skyway.

Day one, July 31, 2007 - We left Westminster on a hot sunny day after Jenevieve's mom took pictures of our stuff packed away in the moving truck. The 5 minutes of driving through Maryland was no sweat. However, highway 30 was tough because of the series of mountains we had to climb. I thought we only had to drive over one hill, but the highway presented us with 3 separate climbs. That's a lot for a heavy truck and a nervous driver. Jenevieve did all right, but she was angry with Google maps for not warning us about the amount of uphill driving involved.

Then we reached I-70 and most of the uphill and downhill driving was completed. Unfortunately I-70 rarely offered a straight drive. It was a curvaceous drive all the way to the Ohio state line. We also hit our first slowdown outside of Pittsburgh with one-lane traffic due to construction. Only a 15-30 minute delay.

We were happy to leave Pennsylvania as we entered Ohio with its straight roads. We were also hungry and low on gas when we got into Ohio. It took about 20-30 minutes until we found an exit for gas and another 5 minutes to find another exit for food, just outside of Cleveland. We ate lunch at around 3:00pm.

A straight and long drive on I-80 from Cleveland to Mishawaka, Indiana. The tank was again nearly empty when we were a few miles away from our hotel. We filled up the tank and bought junk food for dinner. Then 2-3 miles later we stopped at our hotel for the night. We both had a good night's sleep at the Country Inn & Suites just 3 miles away from Notre Dame.

Day 2, August 1, 2007
We wake up around 7:30am, eat our free waffle breakfast at the hotel, and depart at 8:45am. Between Mishawaka and Chicago, we play around with the radio. One of the first songs we heard was by the group Chicago (25 or 6 to 4). Then it was classical, then disco/funk, then jazz, then we gagged at the disgusting atmosphere of Gary and Hammond, Indiana.

Surprisingly traffic was running smoothly into Illinois, but then we hit construction just before I-90 and I-94 converge at the Chicago Skyway. It was suddenly one-lane traffic and we were in the exit lane to South Chicago. After a few wrong turns, we made our way back onto the Skyway with only a 15 minute delay. Construction stopped midway through the Skyway, so we quickly left it behind.

We paid our last toll before filling up with gas again in South Beloit. As we left the gas station with doughnuts in hand, we were making good time. Welcome to Wisconsin! Hooray! Welcome to the longest stretch of a construction zone of the entire trip. Boo! Hiss! We were slowed down into one lane of traffic for 30-45 minutes until we saw the off-road construction. Seconds later, the zone ended and it was smooth driving to Madison.

I realize this blog is getting long, so I'll save the more interesting part of the first two days for the next blog.

Free WiFi?

Because I'm getting a weak WiFi signal from a neighbor, I will keep this post brief. I will write about moving in and unpacking later.

We get a weak signal for wireless Internet in our bedroom. It doesn't work anywhere else. At times the signal goes away, therefore we don't email or blog much. We will get our own Internet service in 3 days. As a matter of fact, we'll get it on 8/8 at 8am.

So here we are moved in La Crosse with free unreliable telecommunications. In a few days, we'll be able to communicate via Internet and telephone. Stay tuned.