Marriott Chicago Northwest Hoffman Estates

Hi everyone!

I hope this year you all will enjoy reading my blog again like last year. We will will be traveling to Costa Rica and Guatemala. I am all pack (I hope) and Denise should be here in a taxi in less than an hour. I made sure to take a nice long hot shower before this trip, because it will be awhile before I will be able ...

... Exit Directory is an excellent reference to tell you what facilities are available at each exit. Color coded and organized by highway, it makes trip planning easy.

Store chocolate and other meltables on the shady side of the RV. The cabinets on the sunny side get very warm.

Label all bottles. To conserve space, I transferred toiletries and other household ...

Hi folks,
We received many emails regarding keeping in touch with us on our journey through Mexico. Currently we are in Zion Illinois for a doctor check up. We have driven to San Antonio from Coeur d' Alene starting out on October 16th. We will be going back to San ...

Last winter, while Rob and I were freezing our butts off, we decided to go somewhere warm for next winter. We didn't know where we wanted to go, we just knew we wanted to go. We started saving money to cover our house expenses while we were gone. We started saving money in a water jug and I called it "Change for Chile". We saved over $400 in this change jar!

... medal for his driving performance today.

Anyway, after the added 2 1/2 hour driving fiasco, I got to pick out four new charms for my necklace, thanks to my sister Mary. I got an owl, a bird, a giraffe, and a suitcase. The clerk there was very helpful and shined up my necklace, too.

After jewelry shopping, we were only 15 minutes away from our stop for the night ...

... Tanzania is seventy days! Since infant immune systems are developing so rapidly, 70 days can be the difference between life and death for an infant with HIV. Furthermore, about 20% of the results never make it back to the patient for a variety of reasons, and some patients simply just do not return for their results. Clearly this system is not effective in getting medical attention to people in need. Our goal for this summer is to ...

... than the buddy pass, but I felt was worth it. Air India offered me a $472.10 nonstop flight to Heathrow with only one day advance purchase. I was sold. Bad news: The flight was scheduled to leave at 9:30p, but we're not leaving until 11:00p.Good news: I have already made my first fellow traveler on this trip, Laila. She and I were in the check-in line together and decided to sit together on the flight.

... visors ect, and met up with the Motorola group to get our pink Pride shirts. We were at the very beginning of the parade, and the crowd was ripe. Anything they could do for our t-shirt and rainbow bracelet handouts... And oh my, what a crowd. I may have been in the parade, but I was definitely a spectator for the day. I saw my fare share of he-shes and muscle boys in cutoff jean shorts, and things I don't even have names for ...

Sunday, June 3, 2007 Home to Chicago via Frankfurt Dear Readers: It is a very long day, commencing with an early departure from the hotel for the airport. Five of us share two taxis arranged by the hotel for a fixed price of about $30. Our driver thinks he's racing in the Indie 500, and literally goes 150 KPH (over 90 MPH). He tells us he could drive us to Frankfurt in just a couple of ...

... Downstairs, we saw a huge model railroad layout, which will show you the train route from Seattle to Chicago. It was absolutely impressive and reminiscent of the days when Mike Blackford kept model trains and dragged us to model railroader shows...only this was on a huge scale. (this doesn't begin to do justice to the train layout!) In other parts of the museum, I learned the difference between a ...