White Illinois Christmas

Steve and I traveled to Illinois for Christmas. We spent 5 days in Northern Illinois with Scott and Christy. We had a great time and way too much good food. The flight to Chicago was fine, landed on time, made it to our connecting flight, got seated, and waited. Then we waited some more. And some more... The de-icer truck was sitting on the tarmack right next to our plane and apparently he decided to take a break rather than de-ice our plane. Over 30 minutes later, we move to get in line for take-off. Well, there wasn't really a line, planes were going in any direction they wished. No wonder 2 planes clipped wings in St. Louis...they were worse than interstate drivers!

Plows lined up and ready at Chicago O'Hare.

We landed in Madison, Wisconsin and were off to Roscoe, Illinois. The roads were slick and snowpacked. We met a young soldier at the airport, dressed in his fatigues, trying to get to Janesville, WI (a city on our way to Roscoe). The problem, he was 24 years old so no one would rent a car to him. He just wanted to get home to see his family for Christmas. Well, Steve said, we'll take you...and with that Enterprise (yes, I'm calling them out) decided they could and would rent him a car. He made it home for Christmas.

Illinois had gotten lots of snow prior to our arrival and more during our travels there, so we had a great white Chirstmas. Scott and Christy were terrific hosts. Scott prepared a turkey for Christmas day and we each had a stocking to "unwrap." The day was spent visiting, eating, and napping!

During our trip, I also was able to tour Southern Wisconsin. We got CHEESE...cheeses ou cannot get anywhere in Utah. Tasty, tasty. We also went to an International Award Winning Microbrewery: New Glarus Brewery. INCREDIBLE brews; the apple ale was DELICIOUS!!! So glad we stopped...I just wish Utah would allow specialties like that to be shipped into the state!

The trip home was uneventful...well with the exception of the Madison Airport being completely over saturated with RED and WHITE.  There were thousands of fans going to the Rose Bowl and they all seemed to be leaving last night! There were extra bars and snack stations set up in the terminal for all the "extra" travelers!  Pretty entertaining to see a "real" college town get behind their team!