USA (Pekin, IL)

Well Well.. We hired a compact car in LA and it was a Mazda 3. Boy it was nice; triptronic (sportsmode or whatever you want to call it) transmission, very powerful, cruise control, lots of room, etc etc. I got to drive it most of the time (Ie, from LA to Santa Barbara and back). Yeay to that!

Now LA was wicked. So nice and clean. Although no one uses there indicators and along highways there practically isn't a speed limit because no one obeys the 65mile/hr limit which isn't posted very often anyways.

So we flew to Chicago. It was warmer than LA and not as nice a welcome; bit more smog, etc. The car we hired was also a compact but it was a Chevy Cavalier, old but looks really cool on the outside, and boy did it bring us back to reality. So dodgy inside. It once had been smoked in. It has no guts (power/torque, whatever), cruise control but a really crap type, doesn't have the cool triptronic gizmo, and the brakes.. well start breaking ahead of time. OH, and the power steering is hardly powerful at all! Hmpf Hertz let me down this time!

Moving on.. DEREK! Boy I miss Sarah, Pierre and all you Australian folk. Mom drove half way from Chicago to Pekin, Illinos (Near Peoria) and I drove the other half (Ie. right to my Grandpa Sarge's driveway IN Pekin).

Boy Grandpa Sarge just as cool and funny as I remember! He's got all these new seedlings sprouting in his breezeway area, most vegetables. We (Grandpa, Phyllis [Step Grandma], Mom, and Jackie) went out to lunch at a pizza place called Monicles (I think) which we always go to when we're here and Grandpa was telling us dirty jokes. haha! I've been doing a lot of videoing. Today I videoed a squirrel. Grandpa Sarge also has a TiVo. He's got the original playstation too. He's such a cool guy!

Today I woke up at 1:30pm (last time we were here in Sept. 2000 I slept until 5pm) and Grandpa said "Wow, I think you slept the whole clock around! Infact you did! I like that kinda guy." hehe

Right now its in the 50°F's outside (Ie, it's cold; 10°C+) and it's way warmer in the house we're in which is located about 20mins from Grandpa's house in Pekin. The area we're in is called.... wait for it.... Kickapoo. And we're on the border of Kickapoo State Park, so it's pretty spooky driving along the lonesome roads. I swear it's where "13 Ghosts" and/or "Gothika" was filmed. Lock the doors kids. :S

And as midnight just ticked over it's time for beddie-byes! The house we're in may as well be two houses stacked on top of each other. Downstairs, the quest's quarters (of half is more like it), has two bedrooms with king size beds, a massive lounge room with cable tv, a kitchen, and of course a bathroom. Upstairs is the same but bigger.

Oh, one last thing. I haven't seen a Krispy Kreme store yet. BUT, I am going to the very first Krispy Kreme store when we visit Winston-Salem, North Carolina in about a week or so. :)

Good night all.

Ps. If I can find time I'll put some nifty pictures on here :)