What is up everybody?
I know that it has been awhile since you heard from us here at the Adventure Diaries. I have to apologize about that, but there is a good reason for it. We have packed our bags and left Chicagoland and headed west back to our home state of Utah. Believe me this was not a easy thing for us to do.
Early in June we started to feel that it was time to head back. I don’t want to say that we were homesick. We have lived in Chicagoland for nearly three years and had never felt this way before. Erin and I had a heart to heart talk and tried to figure out if it was even feasible for use to make the move. A lot of variable had to fall into place. I really don’t now how it happened but everything fell into place perfectly. With all the sign point us home, all that was left was to pack up and hit the road.
In case you were wonder Chicago to Salt Lake City is 1399 miles, which equates to about 21 hours of drive time. Its doable in 2 days. At least that is what we were planning on but the old U-haul had other plans for us. On the first day we ended up blowing a tire and had to wait for roadside assistance to come and change it. This set us back a little. The biggest issue that we had was with the gas pedal. No matter how hard I pushed on it, I could not get it to go any faster than 65. I don’t know if you have ever had to drive across country but after awhile you just want to get to where your going. Especially when you’re driving through Nebraska. Sorry Nebraska I’m sure you have a lot of good qualities about you, but you are the worst to drive through. It is very flat and all the scenery looks the same. Fields! One day maybe I’ll get a chance to explore the Nebraska in-depth and not just I-80.
But our little drive west is not what this post about.
I have never been a fan of big cities. I do not do well with large groups of people and big cities are nothing but large groups of people. Needless to say, when we first started talking about moving to Chicago I was a little hesitant. Really I’m still not sure how Erin convinced me to do it.
To be honest, I’m still not that fond of Chicago but i will have to admit that it was probably one of the best things for us at the time. It definitely forced me to get out of my comfort zone and experience things that I normally wouldn’t have done.
It was hard to pack up and leave our families but it taught us to be more independent. We really grew to depend on each other which also caused us to grow a lot closer to each other. I like to think of myself as someone that doesn’t have a problem with being alone. Lets face it, humans, by nature, are a social animal and they need that sense of community. I suppose that I’m no different. I will miss the little community that we created while we were there. We had met a lot of good people and many friendship were formed. I would like to stay in touch with them as much as possible. I guess that is what Facebook is for. I will miss them.
Besides gangster, Chicago is known as a first class food destination. I would like to say that I had a chance to partake of it all, but I’m a bit of a picky eater which put a limit on what I would eat. From what I chose to eat though it was fantastic. Being near the heart of dairy country, ice cream and frozen custard shops created treats that were creamy and beyond words of how good they were. It seemed like we were constantly heading to Andy’s Custard to get a snack or two.
I might ruffle a few feathers with this statement, but in my humble opinion I feel Chicago has the best pizza. This is not a Chicago Style verses New York Style debate. I have not had a true New York style pizza yet, so I can’t make a fair judgement in that case. I enjoyed eating deep dish, but truthfully I would chose a regular pizza over it. We had eaten at many pizzerias and they were all delicious. Its hard to explain what made them so good. Really hard to beat.
So heres to you Chicagoland. We had some good times and crazy adventures. I would like to say that you will be missed but, lets be honest, I wont miss you that much. I will miss the friends that we made along the way. You will always be part of our story but your chapter has come to an end. With one chapter ending a new one is about to begin. We here at the Adventure Diaries are excited to share new adventures from our home state of Utah. It might be a little hit and miss for the next few weeks until we get settled.
Until next time. Thanks for stopping by.
Josh
