Friday, 7/1, Travel from OH to IL to WI

We actually headed out of OH around the time we planned!!  Left at 9:10AM, hoping for 9:00AM.  Made plans to head to the Chicago Lerer cousins and go out for lunch together.  Drove thru some pretty nasty storms in Indiana.  Nice lightning bolts and everything.  But still able to do the speed limit of 70.  Got to Skokie at around 1:15PM, after saving an hour due to the timezone change.

Chicago Skyline from the car

The kids played with Kiki in the backyard for a bit - got some energy out after sitting in the car for quite a while.  Then left at around 2:00 to have pizza at Tel Aviv Pizza Restaurant.  Karen wanted to go there since they make good nachos with cheese and it had been several years since we were last there.  Was hoping to head out around 2:30, but you know, it was with the Chicago Lerers!  So we wound up heading out around 3:15PM.

Had a little scare with the GPS.  When we were looking for a gas station to fill up, it started acting weird.  Made a weird noise instead of the normal beep, and the map wasn't really drawing on the screen.  So I started getting pretty nervous, being on a Friday afternoon and still having a 2-3 hour journey in a place I was not so familiar with.  I turned it off for a minute, but still was having same issue.  Then, thankfully, it went back to normal and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Saw warning signs for some traffic on the route we were on, so we tried to get over to the main highway instead.  But it turns out there was no close entrance for it, and we wound up circling around for 15 minutes just to land back to the traffic area.  I decided to follow the GPS since it usually never works when I override it with my own directions.  Turns out the traffic was just our route merging with the main highway that we were trying to get on!!  And it was only a mile or so long.  Then we stayed on the main road and followed the GPS the rest of the way.  Some congestion in spots, but overall not too bad from there on.  Arrived in Milwaukee at 6:00PM.  Met up with my father who was already here on a 10 day visit.

The Lerer kids (at least two of them) got a bit rambunctious with Arie and Josh, but they're surviving (Schwartzes and Lerers).  We're all staying at cousin Gil-Ezer (Glenn) and Debbie rather than Aunt Goldie two houses down.  It will be easier to deal with all the luggage and stuff in one spot.

Lerer and Schwartz kids (baby Yiztchak is missing)