For my Spring Break last week, I took a somewhat train related trip. First we drove to Las Vegas, mainly because we get a free room there and cheaper airfare.
Monday we flew to Reno for the day. Love that Reno/Tahoe/Carson City area this time of year. Went to the mall, visited our favorite sandwich shop.
Tuesday afternoon we flew to Chicago. Ordered Giordano's pizza ahead of time, so it was ready as soon as we got our rental car. Left Chicago about 8:30PM and arrived in Cedar Falls Iowa about 1:30AM, after WAY too long of a stop at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop.
Woke up about 7:30AM on Wednesday, got "breakfast" at Starbucks, and headed to Caboose Stop Hobbies. They were filming their live streams when we arrived, so I was escorted to the scared "blue room". Was great finally seeing the store in person and meeting all of the staff. Left there with "only" 12 blue boxes for what I thought was a good price.
After a stop by the gourmet chocolate shop and a photo op and the Cedar River, we left Cedar Falls about 11:30AM and made it to Des Plaines Hobbies before 4:00PM (with a little stop along the way for a snack). Picked up a few more blue boxes at Des Plaines, and headed off to Wrigley Field for a couple pictures, then to Cloud Gate (the Chicago Bean).
Got the rental filled with gas and returned by 7:00PM for our flight back to Vegas at 9:00PM. We were back at our hotel in Vegas by 11:30PM.
Many thanks to Rattler21 for all of his input about our travel plans.
Next time we might drive straight from SoCal and see more points of interest in between. But it was a cool day and a half, thanks to some very cheap airfare.
Strange/Macabre note: Was watching a show yesterday on Investigation Discovery about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. His first conviction was in Waterloo Iowa (a few minutes from Cedar Falls), and his arrest was in Des Plaines Illinois, corresponding to the end points of our 4 hour drive from Caboose Stop Hobbies to Des Plaines Hobbies. Eerie.
