The Return

I just got back from a lovely weekend in Galena with Shannon. I'm using this space to apologize to her (again) for my snoring. Thankfully she's nice enough to not throw things at me when I snore. Anyway. Friday we headed out of town for our weekend jaunt to Galena. For those of you who don't know, Galena is about three hours northish/westish of Chicago. It's very near the Mississippi, and Dubuque, Iowa. I had won a nice bundle of "Galena dollars", so we went to spend it. We stopped for lunch at a nice antique store/bar & grill. The food was meh, but Shannon found some really nice stuff in the store. The weather was less than great Friday, but it wasn't horrible. We checked in to the DeSoto House, which happens to be the oldest hotel in Illinois. Clearly, they haven't used air fresheners, but it was a really nice hotel. This chick at the front desk had us cracking up. She was incessantly on personal phone calls the entire weekend, every time we walked by her. Shannon, who looks for the good in all people (or something) said "Yeah, but she's got that dark hair underneath thing, which is cool." I agreed - she did have cool hair. But I still wanted to make fun of her. My parents were adamant that Shannon and I go check out this Breitbach's place for dinner. 'It's a lovely drive.' they said. 'You'll love it.' they said. 'It's easy to find' they opined. I don't think they meant we should drive to this place, which had no address, in the middle of a drizzly, foggy, dark night. But, Shannon and I are always up for an adventure, so we headed out to find this place. It was terrifying. It was so completely out of a horror movie I'm surprised the car didn't spontaneously start playing some creepy soundtrack. At one point we went over this hill, and it was so foggy that Shannon actually stopped the car because we weren't sure there was a road. Seriously. Finally found the place, in Balltown Iowa. Balltown. Really - I don't even need to say anything about that. The food was good. The pie was orgasmic. After we were fuller than full, we headed back to Galena. Same weather, same everything. We had been on the road about 90 seconds and Shannon said "Humor me. Text someone the following - We are heading back to Galena from Balltown Iowa. If you don't hear from us within two hours, please call the police." OF course, I texted these exact words to TheMarty. He took it all in stride, he's good like that. I'd like to relate more of the weekend to you, except whatever happens in Galena stays in Galena. As it was described this weekend, it truly is a den of inequity. I will say that we drank some wine. More than a little. I knew, though, it was time to head home when we had this exchange: Von: "Run that girl over with the car. She's wearing crocs." Shannon: "Who? Her? She's a little girl!" VOn: "Yep" Shannon: "And, YOU'RE wearing crocs." VOn: "Oh, yeah." All in all, a good trip. We did have a ghost in our room, named Henry Wilson. Look him up, he's a fascinating individual. All in all, a good trip.