You get up off the lounge from your nanna nap to the sound of one of your screaming kids and realize he has been screaming for a while and you still have guests beds to make and a accommodation business to run.

You own a accommodation resort on the outskirts of Chicago with 40 odd guests in. They are a road crew rebuilding a major highway and will be in for a few months.
All was great until you realized just how demanding this group of people could be. I mean the last road crew in here were just great and some awesome friendships were formed. Hell even two of them Matt and Jerry call in when traveling through just to say hello and have a real hearty meal.

This crew is or seems to be the exact opposite, they don’t shower before tea, swear in the dining room, wear there dirty boots in the rooms then demand everything to be spotless clean.
As well as not being able to work out to operate the TV as the remote isn’t working, or the cake of soap is the wrong brand and smells bad.

All this we can handle, thats part and parcel of the accommodation hospitality industry.
What I am struggling with is that the team boss is a ass-hole and keeps threatening to shift over to the Boulder Heights Motel 5 miles east of here.
So my hubby gets on the booze with him almost every night and they simply run a muck.

Sure the boss man is loving it, they get drunk, raid the kitchen, make a mess which really has the cook ready to hand her notice in. Now living with a drunk husband is making the home life with the kids a real challenge.

Yes we need the business as we are struggling with a few debts. However if we keep this crew in we could loose our best cook. I don’t know how much more of these screaming kids with no Dad sober enough to look after them can I take while I go and change the rooms.
Now with a crew like this in I need to oversee the rooms being changed to make sure there are next to no complaints from the so called guests.

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Its 5am in the morning, the alarm sounds out for the second time as you lay there in your warm bed, knowing that it is at least minus 10 degrees outside. I’m sure its my husbands turn to get up and make sure the breakfast cook has everything sorted out.

Then bamm, like a lightning bolt your thoughts are sh.t, snow, road block, hows the cook going to get here this morning, think,think, yep thats right the travel cook is on today and yes its Wednesday, my turn to do the rounds.

launch out of bed then realize you did sprain an ankle 2 days ago and the sudden movement you just made sends you straight down to the ground beside your bed with a chilling screech of pain that shoots your hubby 3 feet straight up toward the ceiling, or close too anyway.

What the hell is going on woman says a groggy husband whom has just realized he has one heck of a hangover from last night, knowing it was his sleep in morning he sort of overindulged in the grog with a few of the day shift staff.

Not that you really minded as his sexual display toward you when he came to bed may have been a bit short although it was full of energy and adventure!

Now all these thoughts are zapping around and now we have a hobbling wife a hung-over husband and a cook stuck on the highway.

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I came accross this article the other day, actually someone sent it in a e-mail and well here have a look and no I havent got any links to my site, its just for fun, enjoy.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM CHICAGO, IF…..

• Your living room is called the “front room.” (pronounced fronchroom)

• You don’t pronounce the “s” at the end of Illinois, and you become irate at people who do.
• You know what goes on a Chicago Style Hot Dog and what does not!
  You NEVER put Katchup on a hot dog!

• You eat your “fries” with Katchup … not your “dog”
• You measure distance in minutes (especially “from the city”), and everything is pretty much 15 minutes away.
• You have no problem spelling or pronouncing “DesPlaines.”
• Your school classes were canceled because of the cold weather. Your school classes were canceled because of the hot weather.
• You’ve switched from heat to air conditioning in the same day.
• Your grocery stores don’t have sacks; they have bags.
• You end your sentences with prepositions: “Where’s my coat at?” or “If you go to the mall, I wanna go with,” or “Come by and pick me up.”
• Your idea of a great sandwich is when the meat is twice as big as the bun, it has everything on it, and a slice of dill pickle is on the side.
• You always carry jumper cables in your car.
• You drink “pop,” not soda.
• You understand that I-290, I-90, I-94, and I-294 are all different highways.
• You know the names of the interstates:
  Stevenson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Dan Ryan, and the Edens, but you call them all “expressways.”
• You refer to anything south of I-80 as “Southern Illinois”

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Just the other day I was driving down the highway near Chicago, enjoying the scenery and keeping a keen eye on the road. I realized then just how beautiful this place is and why has it taken me so long to as they say: to smell the roses.

There is some really nice places around here and I thought well why not write a article on my blog about this area as there seems to be so much to see and if you want to there is also plenty to do. As for this article we will keep it too places we saw and appreciated the rare beauty that is all around us.

For those people that have travelled around the Chicago area this will be pretty much oh yeah we know how beautiful it is and probably don’t really appreciate it as much as we could.
On the other hand for those that regularly drive thru here with eyes peeled on the road and just needing to get to their destination, I encourage you as much as it may be difficult to stop now and then and just have a break. Then you will notice what is around you, and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Let me refresh some of you with a few great places that I thought were worth a visit and at this stage we will keep ouy of the actual city, we can do a lot of sightseeing there all on its own. For now we will concentrate on this lovely area on the outskirts of Chicago.

Some of the places in this area that really had a impact were The little town of Galena at the extreme north western tip of Illinois

A visit to Galena is truly like stepping back in time. Fully eighty-five percent of Galena’s buildings are in a National Register Historic District. Even the scenic beauty of the surrounding hills and valleys is a testament to being untouched by time.

The Glaciers that flattened most of North America during the ice age did not encroach on Northwestern Illinois and the immediate areas to the north and west. Consequently the hills, valleys and bluffs in this Mississippi River Valley area remain intact making it one of the most scenic areas in the Midwest.

Also intact were the rich lead deposits that were first mined by the Sac and Fox Indians. In the late 1600’s the French established trading posts in the area. By the early 1800’s the Upper Mississippi Lead Mine District was established by the U.S. Congress, which paved the way for what would become the industry that gave birth to the City of Galena.

Of equal importance to the city’s growth was access to shipping along the Mississippi River from the Galena River. By the 1850’s Galena was the busiest port between St. Paul and St. Louis often boasting as many as fifteen steamboats at a time docked along Water Street. In 1845 Galena shipped a record 54,494,850 pounds of lead. The population was now 14,000 and the Galena Branch of the Illinois Central Railroad was completed connecting Galena to Freeport, Illinois.

With the decline of the lead mining industry and the start of the California Gold Rush, the population of Galena began to decline and stands at approximately 3,600 today. Although many of the people left, the legacy that remains is a city rich in architectural beauty and history. A history so intact still today, that we are often referred to as the town that time forgot.