Boot Camp Adventure: A Brief Followup

Jamie

June 15

I really, really value a quiet hotel, and ours was in a quiet neighborhood, very near the lake, just a couple blocks from "downtown" Evanston, and an easy drive to the interstate. But wi-fi at the hotel was (ahem) slooooooooow. That said—Holiday Inn Chicago North–Evanston is a place I'd stay again (we were there four nights). Comfortable beds, quiet inside the hotel (good guests, good staff), a parking garage. (It has a small restaurant, which we didn't try simply because we had other things to do; no coffee in the lobby, though.) It's about 35 minutes from downtown Chicago, right next door to the Chicago Botanic Garden, 45 minutes from the navy base.

Jesse got a nice write-up in the local newspaper, and I have no idea how they knew. Maybe the USN sends out a press release on every graduate?

Finally, there's one mystery associated with this trip: I took my favorite dress to wear to the graduation, a matching dress (linen) and sweater. The dress and sweater, together on a hanger, were lain across the luggage on the way home, as was Katie's dress. I took her home, Katie got out her luggage, then I came home and unloaded the rest of the trunk. A couple weeks later, I wanted to wear the dress to a baby shower … and couldn't find it. The sweater was in the laundry room, but the dress was MIA. I called the hotel where Katie and I stayed, even though Katie assured me we left with both dresses on hangers, as they had arrived. That's how I remembered it too. I looked in my closet, in the laundry room, in the garage, in the trunk of the car, in the suitcase (even though the dress was never in it), under the bed (grasping at straws). The dress just … no longer exists. (sigh)

• • •

So we drove to Chicago and then we came home. And even though they'd decided earlier that Katie would stay here and begin packing and wait for Jesse's first assignment, she couldn't stand it. She threw a few things together in a couple boxes, packed another suitcase and the cats, and took off for Norfolk, leaving us to supervise the movers at their rental here in Murfreesboro. We tracked her all the way there, driving by herself with two cats. Within ninety days they were assigned to the naval station in Newport, Rhode Island. We went to visit them in Virginia right before they headed north.