As soon as we saw a sign for Gary, Marsha immediately thought of Michael Jackson, while I thought of The Music Man. Marsha did some impromptu research (thank you iPhone) and since we had no set schedule, we made a quick detour to see the Jackson house at 2300 Jackson Street. Marsha was surprised that I knew the address. I told her that the Jacksons wrote a song with that as the name.
About the time we got to Gary, a warning message came on in the car that the oil was low. We've traveled once before to Massachusetts and back with a tire that needed air every few days, so I wasn't too worried. We pulled over at a service area and found it right on the minimum mark. Since we'd just had the car serviced, I hope that didn't mean we had a leak.
Marsha found a Jiffy Lube in Gary, but we only had ten minutes to get there before they closed. And, of course, we hit just about every stop light on the way. Luckily, we made it just in the nick of time. The super-nice gentlemen there topped us off for no charge, and no complaints for us driving in as they were closing up. Superior customer service!
Then it was over to the Jackson house. We had no trouble finding it thanks to all the neighbors selling T-shirts in their front yards. Love the entrepreneurial spirit! The real shock was how incredibly small the house is! We just couldn't believe that such a large family lived there. It's tiny!
Thankfully, it's also very well kept. A black metal fence surrounds the property, the house and lawn are pristine, and there's an impressive black marble monument in the front yard memorializing Michael.
The bigger surprise, though, was the rest of the neighborhood and all of Gary itself. Most of what we saw looks like an apocalyptic landscape. Just like the sadder parts of Cleveland, much of Gary is boarded up or falling down. Again, we saw a lot of buildings that were once nice. Gary, too, could really use a revitalization. Joe Jackson was a cruel taskmaster the way he pushed his kids, but we can certainly understand his reasons behind it.
Not long afterwards, we crossed into Illinois and hit our first major traffic jam on the expressway through Chicago. Hated not being able to stop (though, technically, and ironically, we stopped a lot on the expressway).
Finally, after much debate on what time we would actually arrive due to the time zone change and whether or not our GPS updated automatically, we made it to our final destination, downtown Madison, WI. What a beautiful downtown! We just love how all of it spokes out from around the Capitol building, which is modeled after the US Capitol in DC. We had a great dinner at The Old Fashioned Tavern which, true to form for us, we had seen on Food Network. Perfect way to end a long day spent (mostly) in the car.
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