Traveling for the Year

So I have spent the week talking up Chicago but I haven't really spent much time talking about what I plan to do for traveling for the year.  Now that my new job is virtually zero travel, save for the occasional convention, my travel will be primarily for fun.  

With summer comes the biweekly road trip to Angola, Indiana to enjoy the sights and sounds of summer on Lake James.  My family bought a condo along the

 lake in 2002 and I only enjoyed this amenity for a short time before I moved off to denver for a period of 3 years. The lake is about a 3 hour drive from the Chicago area and is a great way to get aw

ay without breaking the bank for the weekend.  Sun, boating, swimming, and eating good food are always on the agenda.  If you want to tag along this year let me know!

Beyond that I have trips planned to Denver - sometime in july/august and then again when my good friend Christy has her baby!  Usually these trips involve catching up with friends and hitting up my old haunts along Colfax Avenue.  Again if anyone wants to join me on these excursions I would gladly be host, Denver is a great town to visit, even better if you know the local places to go!  This trip I plan on going the Museum of Contemporary Art and walking around downtown looking at the new development that has been occurring.  It's funny, when I moved to Denver it was the largest city I had ever lived in.  I thought it was this amazing vibrant place (having previously lived in rural Indiana and then Muncie, Indiana for four years...).  Now after living in Chicago for two years, I am struck at how vacant and small the city is.  Everything in Denver seems, quiet.  I like that about Denver though, it was so approachable when I first moved there and I grew into loving the city.  I wonder how I would of fared if I moved to Chicago right after college...

Also on the books for the fall is a trip to Washington DC.  I have frequent flier miles used for a ticket I purchased for the inauguration but couldn't get there due to funding issue (aka I got laid off.) So i plan to be in DC for the September 11th Holiday.  I haven't been to DC in years, since I was a kid really.  I am looking forward to seeing how DC has changed both in my mind and physically.  I remember falling in love with the metro subway there as a kid. I would find reasons why we should use the system and my parents would oblige for the most part.  It was thrilling!  DC is where I started becoming a transit nerd.

That's all my travel plans for now, if I have the time and money I would like to get to Seattle to see my friend Dan, and a trip to LA to see my buddy JJ.  We will see, gotta see how far my salary goes first after bills and such before I commit to trips.  

Sunny and warm in Chicago today, enjoy your day!

With you,

C