Sinister: a midwestern travelogue

[Heather Marie Propes]

Well, we're finally back in Ann Arbor for good, having collected our
worldly possessions from Public Storage and going through hell in Chicago
trying to do that.

Words cannot describe how the past two weeks have affected my emotional
state. First we left Los Angeles for Michigan to look for apartments, on
the heels of the big storm. Luckily we were cruising through New Mexico
when the worst ice was hitting the midwest, but on the night we made it
into Eastern Michigan, the ditch in between the two highway lanes looked
like a used car lot and our car was madly flailing on the ice (well,
maybe not "madly flailing", but it was certainly swimming). We stayed
in our last motel about 60 miles out of Ann Arbor, too afraid to go on. 
The next day we checked into the scariest Days Inn I've ever seen
(Carpenter St., anyone?), scraping ice off our windshield every
morning so we could go to Dennys and then meet with apartment managers.
Let me describe this Days Inn. It had about 400 rooms and 7 guests (Jack
Nicholson was not one of them). Each room had some variation of badly
peeling wallpaper. There was a pool which was never cleaned, a hotub that
was worse, and a sauna that looked as if it had a bad case of wood rot.
The dryer broke as soon as I used it, and I got sick after eating in the
restaurant. I never thought I'd say this, but we should've picked Motel 6. 

After a week we of searching, we found a place, a very nice place I might
add. They gave us a sofa and for the first time in my life I have a
dishwasher. Whole Foods is a stone's throw from our building. Every minute
was joyous, until we decided to go to Chicago and try to pick up our junk.
We stupidly decided to take the skyway into the city, and nearly skidded
off a high ramp in Gary, Indiana. Anyone who has ever lived in Chicagoland
will attest to the fact that scary things always seem scarier in Gary.

The U-Haul place we were promised was not open. All we discovered when we
arrived (in the pouring
rain) was a cheesy looking old gas station and a pay phone next to a block
of ice. I immediately got on it and started bitching them out. I got us a truck and 60 free miles. So
we get to Public Storage with 50 minutes to unpack our two large 
containers into the truck. Then we get on the 94 freeway east, it was one
big pothole. It was like driving on the moon. I was so shaken when I got
off the damned freeway that I ran a red light and got pulled over. The
stupid Chicago policeman forgot to return my drivers license.

Today we get to finish unloading our truck and that'll be it. Hopefully
the big patch of ice outside our doorstep won't get us. And to think I
spent the first 25 years of my life in L.A! Oh well, life is pretty good
otherwise. I like Ann Arbor a lot, and am sure I will come to apppreciate
the town a lot more once I can see it. 

A word of advice, never move in the winter if you live in the midwest.

Back to the boxes. 


Heather Marie Propes   asbuch at midway.uchicago.edu       

http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/asbuch/index.htm#hometop





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