Last year it was Thailand...
This year it was Macomb, Illinois.

I spent a lovely weekend in the not-so-lovely town of Macomb with our lovely, dear friend Emily. She showed me all that Macomb is, was, and ever more shall be. Here are some highlights from my fabulous trip:

1. My flight to Chicago left an hour late, which all but erased the hour I had in between flights to catch my next plane. I had to run all the way across the airport, but I ended up making it in time to visit the bathroom before getting on the plane. Not because I'm a fast runner, but because my second flight was delayed, too. Which was good because after I got on the plane they announced that the bathroom wasn't working.

2. My luggage did NOT make the second flight. I arrived in Moline without it. Then I couldn't find anyone to help me find my bag because apparently no one works at the airport in Moline after 6:00pm. After I finally found someone, they informed me that American Eagle is, in fact, the ONLY airline anywhere that does NOT scan the luggage. So they truly could not tell me where my bag was or when it would arrive, since they could not track it. But they said they would call me if it showed up, and they would even deliver it to the double wide.

3. My bag arrived sometime in the middle of the night to the double wide in Macomb. It spent the night on the front porch and fortunately was not carted off by wild critters while I slept.

4. We watched a lot of bad movies in our pajamas throughout the weekend, which was pretty much the best weekend ever. These movies included the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre (real bad), The Breakup (awkward bad), and Adventures in Babysitting (bad, but in a good way).

5. We visited an apple orchard, which was super lame. We drove for more than an hour with the hopes of picking our own apples and enjoying the nice weather. What we found was a shack with some apples and apple cider in it. We bought apples anyway, which Emily later turned into a couple of apple pies. And those were certainly not lame. At all.

6. We ate pie for breakfast.

7. Then there was the barn tour. We drove through the backroads of the small towns around Macomb and we looked for barns. They all kind of look like this:



We got a little lost. A couple of times. It was not lame. Barns are rad.

8. There was a really awesome play. And I might be lying that it was awesome. Don't worry, it wasn't Emily's show.

9. I was challenged to eat something called a Pony. Picture a lot of bread, meat, and french fries all smothered in cheese sauce in a pile on a plate. I ate it. And later, my colon wasn't happy about it.

10. We witnessed a family dressed in camouflage buying a couch made entirely of camouflage in a store called Farm King. No joke.

11. In case you are wondering if it's really, really dark outside while driving to the airport at 3:30 in the morning through the wilderness of Nowhere, Illiinois... it is. Really, really dark.

I mean, it's no Thailand. But it was pretty rad.

C.T.