A funeral, a burial, a riverboat & a "Cubs Game"

So much has happened since my last entry. I have been with family, been to a funeral, a burial, a "Chicago Cubs" home game and driven across six states. I will see if I can remember to pickup where I was after leaving Council Bluff, Iowa, and the Horseshoe Casino almost a week ago.

I am so impressed with the Interstate Highway System in Iowa. Each of the rest stops have free wireless Internet. Just pull off the National Highway Network System and log on to the International Network System. Why can’t all States do this? The default webpage that comes up has current road construction, locations of rest stops, and much more relevant information to the traveler.

I also discovered a few major intersections in Des Moines that also have free wireless service.

We were even more impressed with the Des Moines area then the Omaha area. I think it really reveals there is a lot of civic pride and future hope for the people who live here then in the big cities. The former looks healthy and prosperous, the latter looks decayed and dying.

We stopped in Altoona, Iowa. It is a N.E. Suburb of Des Moines. There is a large race track located there and about two years ago they got permission to develop a “Vegas-Style” casino. I really enjoyed the poker room. It was quiet, and plush, with friendly staff and about 7 tables. I joined a N/L game with a number of young men, some of them college students from the University nearby.

The level of play was fairly good.

It happened to me again.

One of the first hands I played was Pocket Aces. An Ace flopped, along with a 7 & J. I led the betting to the river. My three aces were ahead of three 7’s until the river. The river brought quad 7’s for the caller. I had Aces full of 7’s when I went all-in when the board paired. When he called me I assumed he had 7’s full. I could hardly believe it when he shouted four 7’s. Not even a bad beat jackpot. Just a low percentage bad beat on the river. He was drawing dead to every other card in the deck except that single “case seven”.

I was able to say “wow, and nice hand” with some sincerity.

The next three hours I enjoyed myself and played as well as I knew how, but was either “card dead” or my hands never improved. I left about $300 down consoling myself that I was up $600 from the day before so I still had a net gain of $300 on the trip so far.

We made our evening dinner in the RV and then I started driving for the Illinois/Iowa border. My plans were to play at the “Isle of Capri” in Bettendorf, Iowa on the Mississippi River. It was about 9:00 p.m. by the time we were at the border, and I had already let my family know I would be in Chicago by noon tomorrow. I decided it was a better idea to keep driving until I was about 2 hours away from Chicago, and then get a good night’s sleep. I wanted to be “ready” for my family tomorrow. So that evening we went to sleep in the RV in Rock Falls, Illinois, two hours west of Chicago.

The next morning we drove into Chicago and had lunch with my mother and brother. They filled us in on Donna’s last hours. It was pretty amazing. She had told us a few weeks ago she wanted to make it to her son’s 30th birthday, but she didn’t want to die on his birthday. She died at 12:03 A.M. (three minutes after her son’s birthday ended.) There is so much we don’t know about the human spirit. She was pretty much in great pain, no real ability to communicate with her family at the birthday celebration, in her home, but she “somehow” must have know when it was “over”.

The next day we attended the funeral. She had planned every detail of it and made every arrangement weeks before her death. She didn’t want her husband to have to do it during his grieving. She said she wanted to do that for her husband as a gift, so we would not have to do it after her death.

The funeral was attended by about 250 people and afterwards there was a dinner for all at the church where the funeral was conducted.

We spent Saturday evening just talking with my brother John and since the burial wasn’t until Monday I suggested I take him and his son to a “Cubs Game” at Wrigley Field. It was a pretty amazing game. The Cubs hit 4 homeruns and scored 7 runs in the first inning.
I had bought tickets from a “scalper” in a doorway right across the street from Wrigley Field. The tickets were fantastic. We were 5 rows behind third base on the Cubs side. I have never had better seats at any game I have attended. (B.T.W. When I was 16 I sold Beer in Wrigley Field for a few games because my grandfather was a beer vendor. I guess I looked old for my age. I just remember yelling “Beer Here!” and how heavy that case of bottles was. That was before the days of cans at the ball park).

The Cubs won 11-1 and as we were walking back to the car it began to rain.

We had Chicago pizza at my sister’s house that evening while Caren and my sister shopped.

The next day the burial was attended by about 20 family members. Then we all had lunch together at my sister’s home in Bolingbrook, (a western suburb of Chicago)

We were on the road by 2 p.m. I drove about 20 miles north and turned left on US 20. We are planning on driving US 20 all the way across the county, through Yellowstone Park, then on to Salem, Oregon. (Caren has family in Salem.)

So while the sun is dropping toward the horizon I have put the RV on “cruise control” and am driving as far west as I can today before I need to stop and get some sleep.