Rollins-Mackenzie Expedition returns from the wild west...

The site of the Wilco Loft/recording studio on North Kedzie in Chicago...


After 14 days of long drives,intense sightseeing, T-shirt buying, visiting chiropractor offices, camping with the bears, eating all that peanut butter and jelly and not to mention attending a killer Wilco concert in South Bend last night, the road trip has unfortunately come to an end. I will provide a quick list of sights and activities we participated in, if anyone is interested. Spent the first whole day (Monday) in Chicago. We visited the sight of the Wilco loft, bought tickets for a Cubs game, took the "L" downtown and walked about fifty miles ending up at Gino's East for Chicago's best deep dish Pizza. I prefer Pepe's in New Haven but it was okay. Took the "L" back to the North Side and witnessed the Cubs get their ass's beat by the Astros at Wrigley Field. The next day after some car repairs we were off to South Dakota. Made it to the Badlands by sun up Wednesday morning. Eventually, that day, we took in the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, The Crazy Horse monument(not yet finished), Custer State Forrest, Deadwood and Devil's Tower in Wyoming. On Thursday we began our trek to Glacier National Park in Montana. We made a stop along the way at the Custer Battlefield site and camped at a crappy campsite an hour or so from the Glacier Park entrance. Glacier National Park is probably pretty cool to see. Unfortunately due to clouds and fog, we didn't see too much of it. But what we could see was great. While heading to Yellowstone, I visited the first of three chiropractors I would need to see in order to straighten the old back out. It was a rough drive to say the least. Yellowstone National Park was great. Camped there two nights, saw our share of wild animals including black bears, a grizzly, a wolf and a coyote. Old Faithful lived up to her name and the miles and miles of walking was great for the back. Headed out of Yellowstone on Monday afternoon and spent a couple of days driving back to Chicago. Visited Fort Phil Kearney and the Fetterman Massacre sight in Wyoming along the way. Stayed at the condo of Kevin's friend in Chicago on Thursday and Friday nights, taking in a trip to the top of the Willis Tower(Sears Tower) and grabbing another Chicago pizza. Set out Friday afternoon for South Bend, Indiana, for Friday's Wilco concert at a minor league ball park. We were able to see the sound check performance in the afternoon and met some friendly South Bend folks waiting for the show to begin. Drove straight home back to CT after the show and got back around noon today(Saturday). I will post some pictures soon. For those who couldn't make it this trip, you missed a great time. I've got some catching up to do news wise so I'll be getting back to normal here slowly. By the way, Joe Biden was at Yellowstone when we were there but we didn't see him. We also heard later, two people were killed by bears while we were there as well. I am sure I forgot a few things, but you get the gist of what we did.