Monday, August 23, 2004

10:45 PM Today’s entry in the Crosswalk weblog is called Should Paul Hamm Keep His Gold Medal? 6:04 PM Lots of visitors in church yesterday, including a new family from Darlington, South Carolina. Darlington is famous for its racetrack that hosts a huge NASCAR event every year. 6:00 PM Yesterday after church we slipped away for an overnight celebration of our 30th anniversary. We spent the night at Spring Hill Suites in Lincolnshire. After checking in, we watched the Olympics for a while and then went to Bob Chinn’s Crab House for supper. Then more Olympics. About 10:50 PM I took a bike ride through Lincolnshire and up into Vernon Hills. The roads were almost totally deserted. Unlike Oak Park where you have a stop sign on every blook, you could ride for a long way without coming to any cross streets. This morning we ate breakfast at Walker’s Pancake House and then went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens where we rode our bikes along the North Branch Trail. It was Marlene’s first time on a bike trail, and we enjoyed the incredible beauty of the Botanic Gardens and the Skokie Lagoons.