It's 800 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses

Well dear readers, tomorrow, I start a little road trip to the windy city known as Chicago, the land of Cubs, Bears, Bulls, and Perfect Strangers. My buddies and one wife are renting a van to make the 800 mile drive to a wedding in which two of us are participating members and as a result, will be dressed in traditional Indian garb.

Now, some may say that the thought of driving to Chicago from NYC seems ludicrous, but actually, this decision was not made after a case of beer or a week long meth bender, it actually was decided upon because the plane tickets to get to Chicago hovered around the 300-400 dollar mark for the last six months. Since each of us is now at a various level of poor, driving seemed like a realistic option especially when we are saving upwards of 200 bucks a person.

AND if it sounds like I am still trying to rationalize this entire trip in my own mind, you are absolutely correct. Mainly because the only other road trip that I made with certain members of the group traveling to Chicago has forever been labeled by me as the ROAD TRIP FROM HELL. The trip occurred after my freshman year of college when one of my buddy's, Gerg (name changed to protect him), asked me and a couple other friends if we would be interested in going to see U2 at Ben Franklin Field in Philadelphia, PA. We all agreed but of course, there was a catch, we had to pick Gerg up from Ithaca, NY, which meant that we had to drive from Southeastern Connecticut to Ithaca and then onto Philadelphia. Now, I will not bore you with the details, but in the end, I believe we left for Ithaca three days before the concert and managed to make it to Philadelphia right when U2 hit the stage. Thankfully, the drive back only took two days. So that is the context in which our present trip is being framed in my mind...

I hope that this does not become the sequel to the ROAD TRIP FROM HELL, but everybody loves a sequel... So tomorrow, I depart, and I will be keeping a diary the entire way, I am going to try an hour by hour affair which will probably drop off to a daily recap... now back to packing.