Mark and I have always wanted to do a cross country Church History road trip in an RV when the boys were in high school. Our dreams came true this summer. Originally we had planned to leave June 30, but the week before leaving, we got some very sad news from Mark's best friend from high school, Dave Matsumura. We learned that his wife, Kimi, succumbed to cancer and passed away. Dave and his kids live in Chicago and Kimi's funeral was set for the Saturday before we planned to leave. We hadn't planned to visit Chicago, but since we were heading that way, we decided to move the whole trip earlier to attend Kimi's funeral and give Dave what little support we could.
We headed out for a very long drive. We left Thursday evening and Mark drove late into the night. He pulled off at a rest stop for a bit of sleep then drove all day long on Friday through the endless fields of Nebraska.
Finally, late in the evening we arrived in Chicago!
We only had the RV and we wanted to park it close to Dave's neighborhood and to downtown for the night, so Mark found that we could pay to park in the McCormick's truck/trailer lot. We pulled in and found a spot among the trailers and had a pretty quiet night, especially for being so close to downtown Chicago.
The next morning we had an Uber come pick us up to take us to the church where Dave is the bishop as there was no place to park an RV. It was hard to see Dave and his kids have to go through this hard hard thing. Kimi really was one of the most incredible individuals. Her funeral was a beautiful tribute to a beautiful person inside and out. I wish I would have known her better. I pray for Dave and his kids. I am glad we were able to be there to learn more about Kimi and be inspired by her incredible faith, generosity and example.
After the funeral we went back to the RV and changed into walking clothes and headed out to see a bit of Chicago that day. We first went to the famous Giordanos for Chicago style pizza.
We were pretty excited and it looked delicious.
But in the end it wasn't as good as we thought it would be. The boys say Little Cesar's is better.
Then we walked the Magnificent Mile and marveled at the spectacular towers and fun Chicago vibe.
It was a lovely day with a lot of walking. Chicago's a cool city.
It was getting later in the evening and we were needing to head out of Chicago so we could be in Buffalo the next morning, but the kids were seriously disappointed by the pizza we had earlier so we caught an Uber over the Chicago's Chinatown in hopes to find some better food. After getting some ligit Bobba and walking up and down trying to make our decision on the best place to eat, we decided to go to Chef Xiong - Taste of Szechuan.
It did not disappoint. We had the best fish ever. It was worth staying a little later in the city and made up for the disappointment of the hyped up pizza.
Mark took us out of the city as evening settled in and started the long push to make it to Buffalo, New York by late the next morning. It was probably about 9 to 10 hours at RV speeds. Mark drove way late into the night and then pulled off the get a little sleep at a truck stop. We made it into Buffalo just in time the next day to meet his two coworkers for lunch at this fun café.
After lunch we drove over to Niagra Falls. Poor Mark was so tired from driving all night that all he could do was sleep in the RV while the boys and I explored the falls.
We decided to do the Maid of the Mist boat ride. I'm so glad we did. It was so fun!
After seeing the falls and a good nap for Mark, we found a place to eat some Philippine food.
The next morning we were going to pick up Mark's mom at the Buffalo airport so we found an RV park to hang out in for the night and morning.
Luckily the boys got a little pickle ball in before the sun was completely gone. We got a great sleep and picked up Mark's mom at the airport and headed out to Palmyra to begin our Church History adventure.
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