Lessons From the Road - Week 3!

We started this week in Chicago, had a stop in Omaha and finished the week in Denver. It was another great week to be spreading the aloha because we finally hit some good solid winter weather… and when there is snow on the ground, spreading the spirit of aloha becomes that much easier to do. But, as much fun as it was to share the warmth of Hawaii with the freezing mainland, it did not come without some ordeals.

We learned two lessons this week:

Lesson 1: If there is a storm headed to Chicago, get out while you can.

Anyone who followed the weather in the Midwest might ask, "Wasn’t there a huge storm that paralyzed Chicago exactly as the Spirit of Aloha Tour was passing through?" Thanks to our astute bus driver, Leon, we left Chicago just in the nick of time. The bus was scheduled to leave Chicago on Tuesday morning, exactly when the storm was scheduled to hit the hardest. Leon could feel in his veins that this storm was going to be nasty. He convinced us to get out before the storm. We listened to Leon and left Monday night and were we lucky!! We got out right before the brunt of the storm hit. We still hit plenty of weather driving to Omaha but Leon got us there safe and sound through that very heavy blizzard. Thank you Leon!!

Lesson 2: The old neighborhoods in Chicago are beautiful and charming but one should not make a habit of driving a 45-foot bus in and around them.

Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago is a little north of downtown, between Old Town and Wrigleyville. Needless to say, that part of town is older. Evidently, when they built those neighborhoods, they were not expecting large buses to be navigating the streets. Our bus sits at 13 feet and four inches tall… all of the bridges in that neighborhood are at most 13 feet tall. Do you see the problem? After an hour of trying to get to the hospital, including some eyeball measurements and some traffic control, we decided to park the bus a mile away from the hospital and take cabs the rest of the way.

Thanks for following our trip and we will see you in Dallas and Houston for the final leg of the 2011 Spirit of Aloha Tour. Mahalo!