Adventure of the Week

I wasn’t sure what I was going to blog about this week until last night.

It all started when the fire alarm at Atkin-Colby went off around nine o’clock. Sighing, my roommate and I took the time to grab coats and gloves. Walking out the door, we were blasted by the cold wind. This was going to be a long wait. After enduring the freezing temperature for what seemed like forever, I suggested we invade Hamilton-Whitten. Several others had gotten the same idea. However, after watching a dance class, we realized that there wasn’t much to do there. Bored, we walked back in hopes of being let inside.

Sometime during this process of going back into normalcy, we realized that we didn’t want to just hang around campus. We wanted to take an adventure. We begged a ride from her boyfriend, who happens to be the only one of us that has a car. Plus, it is a Honda, so the gas mileage is reasonable.

Since his car isn’t parked anywhere near the school, we bundled up and started out on our hour-long walk. I realized that I had been spoiled with clean sidewalks because the further out from campus we walked, the icier the sidewalks became. We stumbled through places where the snow was covering the sidewalk until we finally made it to the parking lot. We fell into his car, grateful for the shelter from the wind.

Pulling out of the lot, we wondered where we should go. We started out driving around Bloomington, but we wanted more. I suggested a diner that I had been to the week before in Springfield: Star 66 Café. They have the best pies ever. The problem was that I couldn’t remember the name of the place. We powered up the GPS and told it to take us to Springfield. I texted a couple of my friends back home to see if they could remember the name. One said that it was Route 66 Café; the other swore it was Roadstop Café. We couldn’t find either in the GPS, but we did find one called Just Off Route 66. Turns out that isn’t the same. We ended up in the middle of dilapidated buildings and questionable motels.

Deflated, we drove around the capital building and wandered the streets of Springfield. Another call got us the cross streets, and we headed off in the right direction, still determined, if a little less enthused. We ended up finding it. We had apparently driven right by it on our way into town. By this point, it’s nearing midnight, and my roommate had a 9 a.m. class. We went in and looked around, picked up some coffee, and began the long trip back home.

Despite the fact that it didn’t go as planned, we all had fun. It was our adventure, and I hope that everyone has a time in their life when they can travel to a new place and roam the streets without any cares. Until the next morning, of course.