The Windy City

I'm not sure if I can top the Sock Monkey Museum, but I'll try.    Saturday we drove up to Wisconsin Dells to attend my great niece's high school graduation party.   Turns out my great nephew was playing tuba in a street concert with his Jazz Camp group, so I got to see that also!   It was a fun day, and I got to meet 'almost' family members I've not previously met.  

Waddles has been sitting 'mooch-docked' in my sister's driveway, skootched up against the garage and I've been sleeping out there all cozy.   When I got up on Saturday morning I thought there was a terrible smell in the air, and figured it was the hot, humid weather creating it.  When we got back from the graduation party, my brother-in-law commented on the smell and told me it was not something he'd smelled before.   I did some investigating and discovered that it was coming from Waddle's battery!  And the battery was quite hot.   So I unplugged the shore power right away.  The battery is sitting right next to the propane tank, so that was NOT a good thing.    The smell went away  and the battery cooled down.    Something was not right.   So Sunday we went to a Batteries Plus store and they tested it.  They said if it had just been charged (which it had) something was definitely wrong and I should replace it.  They did not have a similar battery in stock, so we went to Napa and found what we were looking for.   I installed it and all is well.

Also, I think I may have mentioned before that Waddles' battery is not charging when hooked up to the running car, which it should be.  So today I took it to an automotive place to see if they could figure out why.   I'd not tested this before leaving home, and suspected that the needed wire was not hooked up when the hitch and wiring was installed.   They confirmed that suspicion and fixed the problem.  I just hooked up the trailer and all is right with the world.   I'm hoping this will make my return trip a little easier.  I've been worried about the battery up until now.

Old battery 

The new battery charging while the car is running!  YEA!

Last night we took the train into downtown Chicago to attend the Chicago Blues Festival. This is a free 3-day event with 4 different stages!    On the way from the train to the festival we found the end of Route 66!

And the festival was right next to 'The Bean', which has a virtual geocache.

The music at the stage we went to was wonderful...and there were a LOT of people

Rhiannon Giddens was fabulous

Gary Clark Jr.  was really amazing

The first performer was Ronnie Baker Brooks, son of Lonny Brooks.   Another wonderful performance.    We headed back to the train at about 9:30pm.  On the way we saw this Picasso sculpture:

The the view sky-ward was pretty cool...

On the train home, the doors were not working, so we got home after midnight because two conductors had to manually open the doors at every stop!   It was entertaining.  At least the train was running.

Tonight we are going to see my other great nephew play baseball.    Tomorrow I'm not sure what is on the schedule.  Wednesday I'm planning to head home, via Ontario to visit another friend!   The next few days here in Illinois are going to be tough.....  check the precipitation as well as the temperature.