Air travel is amazing! No matter how often I fly, I am always in wonder how quickly we get from one state to the next. At least I am in awe until there's a flight disruption and a schedule change, but that's another story. Yesterday at noon, Larry and I boarded an American Airlines commuter plane in Chattanooga and in less than two hours, we were sitting in Lauren's car outside O'Hare airport. We wove in and out of traffic back towards Wheaton, making a quick, three hour detour at a mall in Oakbrook. We conquered and divided; Lauren and I tackled a few clothing stores and Larry's heart rate elevated as he found a Barnes and Noble on the mall directory. 

Just between you and me, we have a serious issue on our hands. Mostly it is Larry's problem, although I will admit that I do contribute sometimes. He has a textbook case of Abibliophobia,  a fear of being without books. We both love to read and we are old fashioned enough to want to turn actual pages and not scroll through a kindle. At home, there are books everywhere. You can wander into any room of our house and be comforted knowing that there is always reading material within reach. Air travel presents a unique problem for an abibliophobic who hates kindles; your carry-on luggage ends up being weighty books (even if they are light hearted readers, they are heavy by the time you've lugged them through an airport). We were planning to visit our 2 college kids and be away for a total of 24 hours, so this was our reasonable pile of books to take along:

And yes, I will own half of that pile. We did not however, factor in a three hour stop at Barnes and Noble. Using great restraint, Larry emerged from the store with this small stack:

I asked him why he had two biographies of Beethoven. After seven years of piano lessons, he is so into classic pieces that now, he wants to read about the composers and the how and why of their artistry. I guess one can never have too many books about Beethoven. Nerds rule the world! The only thing I have to contribute is the joke that goes, "What's that on the piano bench?" "Its Beethoven's 5th movement". Sorry, I know that's baaaaaaaaaaaaad. (From Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony - you know, baaaa, sheep, in a pasture. Never mind. At least I have my recipes). Now we have this stack to lug through the airport on our way home:

You just never know, in the course of one day, when you might get stuck and need something to read.

After the shopping venture, we had a delightful dinner at a new pizza bar that just opened this week in downtown Wheaton, called "Gia Mia". Ravenous from shopping (and carrying books), we devoured everything: charred cauliflower, an arugula salad, a mushroom, pepperoni, sausage pizza, and a spicy soppresseta, roasted onion, garlic and basil pizza. My favorite was an appetizer of fresh Chicago Burrata (an Italian cheese made from fresh mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is solid mozzarella, while the inside contains both mozzarella and cream), charred grapes, pesto, sea salt and baguette toast.

At seven pm, we made our way to Pierce Chapel on Wheaton College's campus, to enjoy a concert by the Wheaton College Men's Glee Club Thundertones. This a cappella group of ten guys is a subset of the glee club. They choose their own songs, do many of their own arrangements, work very hard on the music, and sometimes have so much fun it should be illegal. Derek is a sophomore and this is his second year singing in Men's Glee Club and the Thundertones. We meant to just show up and surprise him, but I think we have done that one too many times and he was looking for us there. 

It was a great concert, starting with the guys walking out onto the stage in baseball caps and with baseball gear and recruiting the college president, Dr. Ryken, to help them sing the National Anthem. Here is a rap number that featured Derek: (what else do you expect from his mother?!)

After a wonderful day, Lauren deposited us safely at our hotel, at an hour well past our bedtime. This morning, Larry and I and our books flew back to Chattanooga. Larry even managed to get a bird's eye view of our driveway, from the direction we dropped into the airport. Air travel surely has shrunk the world!

Special thanks to our son, Chris, who came over last evening after work to housesit and take care of "the boys", while we were on our 24 hour adventure!