We were up and out, and on our way to Chicago bright and early at 8:55 a.m., after swooping down to pick up Kenny. The four-hour trip seemed insignificant after the marathons we'd been pulling. We finally figured out where Rosa's was, and by the time we got there, a fierce wind with near-zero wind-chills was screaming through our jackets as if we were naked. Since the van was full of equipment, Terry asked if anyone wanted to stay in the van while he met with Tony, the owner (and son of Mama Rosa) of Rosa's. I volunteered, giving me some time to finish up the article in Wired magazine I was reading. Everyone else piled into Rosa's--Kenny and Jeff to grab a smoke, and Jesse out of curiosity.

Rosa's doesn't look like much from the outside, and was very different from what I remembered from my previous trip with Joanna. The paint on the outside was peeling off revealing bare wood. The two small window frames were rotting, but the doors were secure and the sidewalk was clean. The general area on N. Armitage is not exactly broken down, just worn down with endless unknown human stories and dramas taking their toll, not to mention the harsh climate of Chicago taking its inexorable molecular toll. Today the wind was howling down those mean streets as fast as traffic on the open highway, and with only 36 degrees of temperature, it was a chilly reminder to us tender Cascadians of the reality of winter. That being said, today is one of the coldest days on record for October in Chicago, so we weren't alone in our chilliness.

The boys were in Rosa's for about a half hour, long enough for me to turn the van back on to warm it up. About 15 seconds after I did so, everyone piled out of the club and quickly into the van. We headed to the trusty Motel 6, but didn't get there for about 40 minutes, as we figured out the fastest way to get there and in the process ironically took twice as long as it should have taken. This Motel 6 is about two miles from O'Hare Airport, so low-approaching jets were thundering over the place about every three minutes. The room was acceptably insulated from the roar, and thankfully warm as toast. Jeff hooked up to room with me. We loaded in and hunkered down to watch bad movies and cheap productions on HBO.