A letter from Jul 18, 2024

hiiiiiiiii!!!!!! writing to you from my 24th birthday. happy birthday! you're about fully cooked! dad and i just got to chicago yesterday. it was rough getting all my **** up the stairs, but i think we got it done in record time. sitting on savannah's air mattress, drinking coffee, and using a moving box as a stand for my laptop. a little stressed about everything i need to get done before monday, but today is my birthday! so i'm gonna take the whole day off. the only things i wanna do today are go out to eat, eat dessert, see savannah in beehive, and maybe go to the lake. the trip here was great. the first day we drove all the way to nashville. we went to the bluebird cafe that night after dropping our things off at the hotel. it was blues night and a special night too because it was a tribute night for one of the members of the band that had passed away last fall. mike henderson. the band was amazing and a lot of his bandmates from different eras spoke before the set. really interesting characters - i had fun people-watching! the next morning, we parked the truck across the cumberland river and walked across the bridge to downtown. we went early so it wasn't so crowded yet. but as soon as 10:00 hit, the bands started playing. we went to the museum of african american music and then grabbed lunch and pbrs from robert's western world. i just got a grilled cheese but dad got the "recession special" (fried bologna sandwich, chips, pbr, and moonpie). he gave me half of the the moonpie. we walked back across the bridge and headed to mammoth cave national park. i luckily snagged us two reservations for a cave tour. it was the one called frozen niagra. it was really ******* cool! so chilly and wet down there - we apparently were 150 feet below the surface at one point. there was a cool section where you had to crouch to get through. definitely the highlight for me. i bought a sweatshirt to remember it by. we headed further north and stopped at a hotel just north of louisville. at this point, we were pretty beat, so we didn't do any more sightseeing. it was cool to see the landscape change throughout the trip. from typical southern landscape to the mountains of tennessee to the wide rivers and deep caves to the flatlands of indiana (and ****** interstate roads). finally making it back to chicago felt kind of glorious. the weather got really nice after huge storms in the area (tornados included!). the lake was bright blue - everyone was out on their boats. driving was a bit stressful, but we made it out alive! had to grab my keys from sav's apartment - i said hi to her kitty shadow, i think he was happy to see me again! well, so far we've gotten all the kitchen boxes unpacked. we had frozen pizza last night and talked to mom on the phone. i tried sleeping in this morning, but i got up at 6:00 needing to pee and couldn't get comfy again. so it's 9:00 now and i guess it's time to make breakfast. love you, sarah