NCAA tournament in Minnesota

At least the snow and ice had gone away by the Friday when we

left early in the morning to drive to St. Paul, Minnesota to see Ferris play in the NCAA hockey tournament.  I had thought that the days of John and I packing quickly and going somewhere unexpected were somewhat over with the Bean’s arrival.  But I realized that after a long drive to Florida, plane trip to New Orleans and planning a month in Europe, a weekend drive felt like the easiest thing in the world.  We threw some clothes in some bags and got the hell out of town only 

packing at 6pm the night before.  So, apparently I can still get out of town at a moment’s notice even with a toddler.  We met Tara at the drop-off point and here is someone that is so into Ferris hockey that she has agreed to a very long drive and two nights in a hotel with a toddler who is not her own.  I love Oscar and I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t do that.  I did the driving because John was going to get some grading done and it helped that I had Tara there to talk to.  Oscar was excited just seeing all the traffic go by, took naps and played with his daddy in the back seat throughout the whole trip. Every time

we stopped for food, we made sure and got out, let him run around and tried to give him some space to get some energy out.  John was the navigator and I asked him to route me around Chicago and not through it.  I also said that we needed to stop for gas before we hit the Chicago area, but he sent me onto I-90 toll road and it was pretty quick when we ran out of the easy on, easy off gas stations and then suddenly we were in Chicago.  And not just in Chicago, we were in traffic in Chicago.  It

didn’t matter that it was 1pm on a Friday, there was still traffic that was pretty much not moving.  So, now, I had to look at John in the rearview mirror with a look that Paul would have wanted a picture of to go in the collage of facial expressions that I give John when he has struck a nerve of mine.  I told him that if we ran out of gas on a crowded freeway in Chicago, he was going to be walking to the hockey game in St. Paul.  We were able to find a gas station that was only a couple of miles through some residential section of Chicago, get gas, and go through some random alleys to get back on to the interstate finally.  John was trying to sound like he hadn’t screwed up by pointing out that we weren’t on the Magnificent Mile, but we went into Chicago in a way that I was hoping to avoid….