Chicago Roads

I, like most people, think of Chicago and immediately think of their illustrious gangster past.  I envision beautiful cars driving through downtown, pulling into alleyways to deposit their luxuriously dressed inhabitants into speakeasies where they will spend the remaining pre-dawn hours dancing the night away.  Chicago also brings to mind the vibrant art scene, electric jazz, and deep dish pizza that will make you completely full after just one slice.  But that's about all I know about the place.
Photo via The Exceptional Man

After we made our way back from visiting the wrong-side-of-the-tracks in southern Chicago, we snaked our way through downtown, by the Lake Michigan coast, heading north towards the closest campground.  We had desperately tried to find a place to park our camper in the suburbs but to no avail.  The closest campground was in Zion, IL; two miles from the Wisconsin boarder, where the Cancer Centers Of America in Chicago are located, and where all the roads are named after Biblical characters...in alphabetical order, starting with Abraham at the lake front in the east and going all the way to Zebulun to the west.  There's no booze to be found here and the Zionese idea of a hot date on Friday night is a session of bible study.

Sewing at the Zion campground

As we drove through town we quickly discovered that by-far-and-away the roads in Chicago are horrendous.  Worst roads ever!  I naively assumed that some of the millions of organized crime loot would be used to smooth over the roads.  I thought that they wouldn't want their luxury gangster cars to rattle apart.  Poor Breathless almost rattled apart while we were up there.  No, in fact she did rattle apart--something about a bracket falling off which becomes dangerous when we brake.  Mental note to self: never again try to drive in Chicago unless we have a huge tank of an SUV that we borrowed from a car rental company that's fully covered by insurance so if that car falls apart, it's simply not our problem.

Photo Via No Games Chicago