About two weeks ago, Liz received a letter from the Illinois State Historical Society that the Joseph Naper documentary had won an award. Without knowing anything else about it, Liz and I (who also worked on the documentary) made hotel reservations and hopped in the car for another road trip to Grafton, IL which roundtrip would clock in at 562 miles.

Our plan was to drive to Springfield, spend the night in a hotel, and then drive the last 3 hours to the award ceremony in the morning.

Halfway to Springfield we stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel, where I had never eaten before. Two Friday Fish dinners and one raspberry lemonade later we were on the road again. Luckily the rest of the time to Springfield went quickly thanks to another infamously fantastic cd music mixes that Liz makes. Men Without Hats, anyone?

We finally arrived at the hotel in Springfield where we asked the nice hotel clerk how far it was to Grafton, IL. (This being important so we could figure out how much we could sleep in the next morning.) She told us it was 1 1/2 hours, not the 3 that I had thought it was. In fact the hotel clerk was so convinced that Grafton was 1 ½ hours away that when Liz asked if she was sure, she replied that she had lived there her whole life!

Liz and I then spent the next half hour trying to get the wireless internet working at the hotel so we could find out how many hours it really was to Grafton, IL. Liz tried to get her Blackberry and laptop hooked up to the internet during our struggle. (Talk about being wired! I am surprised she did not have DISH TV in her back pocket.)

Finally, Liz was able to get on the internet and we discovered that we were looking at a 2 to 2 ½ hour trip to Grafton. Not as good as an hour and a half, but better than 3 hours.

We then slept soundly.