Our Midwest jaunt
One of the comments transplants to the Bay Area from the Midwest or East Coast often make is that while they love the Bay Area weather, they miss “real weather”, i.e., four clearly demarcated seasons, all capable of being harsh. In Chicago, when I was there, that meant cold waves in winter and heat waves in summer both capable of causing fatalities. It is amazing how this can be nostalgized over time.
On that note, we recently took nearly a week and half off to visit both sets of grandparents (from our son’s perspective) in the Midwest. There, we renewed our acquaintance with “real” weather. Specifically, that uniquely Midwestern, trailer park-assaulting phenomenon called the tornado. We happened to depart for Chicago the day a cluster of tornados descending on the Chicago area. In the end, we deplaned, in a dramatic exit from the rear of the plane onto the tarmac, in Milwaukee, under the cover of darkness, a mere six hours late, and then took a cab down to the suburbs of Chicago. (The kid, who admirably held it together during the six hours of delay, was wide-eyed in his rolling car seat as we trundled out the back of the plane, then zonked in the cab.) We still arrived before our original plane made it to O’Hare. This is the storm we were trying to land in. Biblical stuff. Watch the Cubs fan run for cover as the tornado sirens sound. We watched a lightning shower to our left for the duration of the cab ride. Real weather indeed.
Our luggage, meanwhile, wisely hightailed it to Buenos Aires for three days of R&R.
