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Mother-in-Law's Hometown, Illinois
July 2 to July 4
We left Wisconsin around 8:30am Wednesday morning and drove to Six Flags Great America, which is somewhere outside of Chicago. It was hot. So amazingly uncomfortable, with high humidity and temps somewhere around 96. Bleck.
I did some rides, and one roller coaster - which gaves me a monster headache because it was so jerky. Overall, my first trip to a Six Flags was a let down. Not anywhere near as many things to do as there are at Disneyland or Disneyworld if you don't want to do rides. All the shops had pretty much the same merchandise. Bathrooms were few and hard to find. There didn't seem to be many rides that weren't roller coasters. So when Sweetie's parents decided to leave early, I bowed-out and left with them. We had dinner with Mother-In-Law's brother and his fiance, after way too much time in the car. Traffic was terrible getting around Chicago. And I didn't even SEE Chicago!
After dinner, we had a lovely car ride to MIL's hometown, just after sunset. At first, there were just a few fireflies. But after a half hour or so, they increased considerably. I couldn't believe how many there were, not only hovering over the corn fields, but also along the side of the road, some even in/over the road. Finally, there were so many it was a little like that first, light snowfall, white flakes flying by your windshield, in your headlights, along your side windows. Except these weren't flakes, they were little neon-yellow flashing bugs. I wanted so badly to just stop the car and watch them. I could almost imagine hearing the crickets. I wondered why anyone out here bothered with fireworks, when all you had to do was zip down the highway and see such a display. I wished once again I was a poet, to somehow put this into pretty words that could properly match the magical moment I was having. But soon after thinking that, a song came on the radio, some silly 60's number, a guy singing about a butterfly and catching "her" in his net, how pretty, blahblahblah. I realized anything I could say had been said before numerous times, and would sound as silly as that love song to a woman who reminded some guy of a butterfly. So I would just have to keep it to myself, enjoy it, savor it. And write about it here.
The next day was pretty tame, especially after the excitement of Six Flags and beauty of Wisconsin. We arose around 9am (early for us, after the previous 3 days of early risings) to brave the weather (96F already) and drive to the next town over for breakfast for 14. Then we came back to the little house we were staying at and just chilled, literally, air-conditioner set to 69 as the temperature continued to climb near 100. The "heat-index" was 101. Central Air Conditioning = Heaven.
We only emerged from our cold-coccoon of laziness to go to Sweetie's Uncle's house for dinner and a bit of socializing. It was nice to see people getting along that were supposedly feuding. The GOSSIPING was just out of control during this trip!
That evening, I went outback to watch the fireflies, and I thought someone was running some sort of machinery out there or nearby. Maybe a chainsaw? Generator? Wait. It was coming from the trees. Overhead! I swear to FUCK there were mechanical fucking birds dying a horrendous, noisy, SLOW death above me in those trees! They would slowly wind down and it sounded like the last echoes of an air-raid siren winding down. Then they'd start up full-boar like they'd never stopped. My husband came out and I had to shout at him on the porch from where I was in the middle of the backyard. It was horrible! I thought for sure it had to be some speaker set-up to scare something away from the trees. Except something Husband did scared the birds, and they flew off, landed in trees farther away in someone else's yard, and started up again. The noise was duller and farther away so it HAD to be those damned birds. It was monstrous!
So I went to the front yard to just sit and watch the fireflies, and get away from those damned demon birds. I was successful on both counts. If you didn't fix your eyes on the ones right in front of you, the fireflies looked like they were bubbling up from the ground likes sprites. They literally looked like spirits from video games I've played. It was very dreamy. I went inside and convinced husband to drive a short ways down the highway to watch them hover and bubble over the cornfields. I couldn't believe how many of them there were. Back in town, people had been walking around without even noticing. An Aunt drove up to feed the fish in the pond at the house, and admonished me about getting "eaten alive", only to chuckle that I would brave my flesh to watch fireflies. I just couldn't imagine ever getting used to such naturally beauty, such magic, right there in your yard every evening.
