Bad Bad Leroy Brown

Jumping back in time to about mid-August...

Why is that travelers inevitably wander into the bad part of town when they first get to a new city?

After leaving my friend Ben in Omaha Dan, Conner, and I beelined our way down highway 80 that cuts right across Nebraska cornfields, heading for Chicago.  Each state map in our 1990-era Walmart atlas is not drawn to scale and we sometimes forget that detail when we're guessing how much time it will take us to get from point A to point B.  It's that minor fact that should explain why we were halfway into Chicago before we realized that we had no idea where we were going or who we were staying with.

So we pulled off and drove around looking for a coffee shop--any coffee shop--but to no avail.  There are simply no cafes to be found south of downtown.  And another thing, we're used to getting looks as we drive through a new place--and for the most part we like the attention--but man, the looks we were getting on the south side of Chicago, they were tough.  No waves; no smiles; none of the usual reactions--just pure stare down.

Later on when we talked to Chicago folk, we were told that south Chicago was dangerous with a capital D and that we were lucky Breathless didn't break down because she most likely would have been striped down before we even blinked an eye.

And we just had to start singing Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown...
Photo via Bamboo Trading