Our Trip to IL.......Part 5 Saying Goodbye, Coming Home & Secrets Revealed

On Thursday morning we bid adieu to Sonya Ann and Den.....well Den was at work so we said our goodbyes to him the night before.

Before we get into how this day went I want to say a few things about my cousin, Sonya.
She had a serious Halloween addiction.
The glimpses of her Halloween decorating she has shared on her BLOG are just the tip of the iceberg!
Oh yes!

Sonya Ann and Den are very serious about Halloween.
Not like those people who do stuff like THIS or THIS......yet!
Yah, she'll probably get some ideas from these clips, right? ;-)

She does do decorating the outside the house.  Her hedges were spider webbed and lit up plus there is a freestanding ghoul by the front door,  but I forgot to take a picture of all that.
But not only does she decorate outside her house for Halloween, she decorates inside too!
And I don't mean a pumpkin or witch or two.
No.

Every freaking room was outfitted for Oct. 31st!!
Even the bedroom with the "crippler" in it had Halloweenie stuff on the dresser.

THIS is what greets you at the back door.........

And in the kitchen she's got this on the fridge........

And this one by the stove......

Here's the living room.......

All the framed art is covered in black, the lamp too, the sofas have sheets on them and the curio cabinet in the corner looks like a gigantic Grim Reeper.

If you sit on the sofa and look out her picture window this is what you see(you see a part of the giant spider outside on the hedge too)......

Can you tell he is my favorite? lolz

And the "piece de resistance" is the satanic altar by the front door............

To me, Ms. Minimalist Decorations Sluggy, this all is way over the top.
But hey, I know people who do this and more for Christmas decorating.
Why not Halloween if that floats your boat?!?

I have to admit it is fun.........as long as "I" don't have to put all this away on Nov. 1st. ;-)


I have done a pretty thorough paper trail/family tree genealogy on Cousin Sonya but I discovered something on this trip that makes me doubt if we are really related.

I may have to convince SA to take a dna test because I suspect there is some Greek blood in her somewhere that I haven't found in the family tree.

And just why do I suspect she's got some Greek in her?
Why this.......

A bottle of generic Windex.

This is Sonya's constant companion when she is home.  She if forever cleaning!  
Oh the horrors!!!

Every time I turned around she was squirting generic Windex on something or someone, just like Gus Portokalos.........

So now I have outed you Sonya.
Here's your sign.......

So back to the travelogue--
We left Thursday morning after a couple of photos to memorialize the day.
First Sonya tried to hide behind the cat.........

That's better.......

We waved goodbye and hit the road toward Southern Illinois.  We decided to take a more Southerly route back east to avoid the Indiana and Ohio Turnpike(and all those tolls).  We still had to pass through Illinois Toll Hell until we got past Chicagoland(and I already blogged about the clusterf**k of not having a tollbooth on some exits).

Here are the sights driving along the highway--
A Cubs billboard, right after they lost the title to the Mets.
I told Hubs(who is a diehard Mets fan)we really needed to get out of Chi-Town fast before someone found out he rooted against the Cubs.

Now you don't see billboards like this were I live.
$10 Tuesdays at the strip club......

We got behind a fleet of shiny new fire engines at one tollbooth going South to their new homes..

So we made good time traveling South and we had arranged to stop in Mattoon to see Hubs sister.
This is the same sister who we went out to see 2 Summers ago when she got married(not that that marriage "stuck").
We had lunch and I snapped this photo of them before we left town.........

Man was it hot for late October!  Look at this bank sign........

We had to drive through Charleston IL after our lunch date and right by the University.....the main building of which looks like a castle.......

I spied the King and Queen of the castle standing on the sidewalk outside.........wtf?
It couldn't have been Homecoming or something because it was a Thursday??

We drove until dark and stopped on the eastern edge of Indiana for the night.
Next morning we overslept and missed the free hot breakfast at the motel so we hit Taco Bell after filling the car and before hitting the highway.......

I had my first taco biscuit.  It was strange but tasty.

But I can't think of the word "biscuit" anymore without thinking of that Honey Boo Boo Show and Mama June's definition of a "biscuit".  *snort*


Our approach into Columbus......big buildings............

We stopped mid afternoon for a snack when we refilled the gas tank in the car.

1 little WC slider kept our tummies from rumbling until we stopped for dinner at a truck stop with a Denny's.

I was tempted by this t-shirt at the truck stop(after so long in a car for 2 days with Hubs ya know!).....

The scenery on the trip home through western and central PA was a bit more colorful that it had been on the trip out to IL......

We got home before dark after an uneventful 2 day drive home in which we didn't stop even one time to buy liquor.  Shocking I know!
Sometimes uneventful is GOOD. ;-)

It seems like it's been 6 months since we took this trip but it hasn't even been 2 months yet.
We had fun and enjoyed good company and I am ready to do it all again.
Thanks for hosting us Sonya and Den!  8-))

Sluggy