In the summer of 2016, I had gotten a $300 flight voucher from American Airlines in exchange for agreeing to take a later flight to Charlotte, NC. Considering all it meant was I spent more time hanging out in LGA instead of CLT before making my connecting flight to Asheville, NC, it was easy to give up my seat. I was then left with what to do with my flight credit…
Ultimately, I decided to take a trip to Illinois and spend the few days before my birthday there. I could visit with my family, as well as get a taste of a new state. It was a whirlwind few days, as I tried to see everything – while still staying at my dad’s house, which wasn’t quite as close to Chicago as I’d originally thought. We did one new place a day, which looked like:
- Chicago, where we took a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the city to try to see it all. Highlights of this day trip were definitely eating lunch at the original Portillo’s and grabbing a selfie with my little brother at “The Bean” (Cloud Gate)!
- Dixon, which when I last checked, had a population under 16,000 people. It’s a tiny place, but you go to tiny places for family. Highlights from this visit was driving to Iowa to go to Target, as well as boating down Rock River.
- Rockford, as in the Peaches. My dad and I stopped here so I could catch the bus back for my flight. Highlight was definitely the Midway Village Museum, which had a little bit of everything, from A League of Their Own to sock monkey history.
My birthday is later this week, which made me think back to this solo trip – a time before I even knew “solo trips” were a thing! While I won’t be celebrating with a trip, I will be celebrating in downtown Tampa with Tyler, Sara, and Megan. Then next week, we’re off to Greenville, SC, to wrap up what has been a truly wonderful summer of travel.