Second City?

*As usual, photos are presenting us with quite the challenge. Stay tuned tomorrow for photos.

One of the tenets of this trip's "planning" has been that a lack of any plan would allow the freedom to explore. Today we made our first real detour into the unknown.

After a quick stop at the Salvation Army for some $2 cutlery and pots, along with some amazingly cheezy cassette tapes for $.79 each, we left Ann Arbor and any previously known roads behind. Passing Battle Creek, Michigan we saw a sign for "Cereal City, USA." Battle Creek, as we were to learn extensively, was the birthplace of the American Cereal. It was a must-see.

Driving down Main Street, Battle Creek we were bombarded by images of Tony the Tiger and foundations bearing the Kellogg name, apparently devoted to the advancement of people of color and/or mental retardation. We eventually came upon the Cereal City, a museum of sorts, dedicated to the history and explication of Kellogg's Cereal. Much to our chagrin, the admission fee was a hearty $8. Not one to be dissuaded, Chris immediately began to sweet-talk the young ticket-seller, asking about "teacher" discounts and producing his Fordham ID. As he spoke, he slowly morphed into a story about how he was doing research on popular culture (not really a lie) and that he might want to bring a group of his young acolytes to this very museum if Kellogg's would merely spring for our admission fee. When Manager Mike came over, he happily obliged at the prospect of a future group fee. Jason stood by respectfully throughout the machinations.

Upon entering, the museum whisked us up a stainless steel escalator to a floor filled with ridiculous oversize cereal boxes and admiring "suckers" alongside us. Taking this all with a healthy dose of irony we were happily amused taking a picture with Toucan Sam and competing (poorly) in a Kellogg's cereal knowledge quiz. Our irony became as stale as corn flakes before the invention of wax paper sealant. We wandered through the history portion of the tour and became fascinated by the fight for cereal supremacy waged on the shores of Battle Creek River (actual name). Edging our way into a tour of a simulated factory, we joined wailing children and their smiley parents, mouths agape as we donned our 1950's soda jerk hats and learned the process of corn flakes production.

Although technically complicated, we were amazed at the relative simplicity of production of this pre-packaged foodstuff. Take some corn kernels, peel the shell (now it's a grit), put on some flavor syrup, cook it, press it between giant rollers, flash toast it (1 min. @ 500 degrees), spray it with vitamins, and seal it in wax paper. Eh, voila, Corn flakes!

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From Battle Creek, MI, we forged onward to South Bend, Indiana, home of the famed "Fighting Irish".
We have decided to limit our description of the city to two words:
It blows.

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It's the end of the night and we've spent the remainder of the day on our feet as opposed to on our buttocks, so fatigue is setting in. The picture speak quite loudly about Chicago's hipness, but the best thing we can say is that there seems to be an entire city still left to explore. We've already recommended to multiple friends that they move here and questioned our own living environments.

The town has beautiful architecture, great lakeside beaches (replete with bars and volleyball nets), nice restaurants, and streets packed with people. There is something slightly different about this city, something about it that keeps on making us forget that we are still in the United States, leaving us saying things like, "Oh, they have Barneys in Chicago too?"

And the pizza is pretty good.

Good night.