If you know anything about me, you know that I love to travel. I love absolutely everything about it; eating local food, going to every local bar I can, doing all the touristy stuff, and just spending time with friends old and new. Travelling is what makes me happiest in this world, and I do it every chance I get, and to any place I can. I’d much rather buy a plane ticket with my money than spend it on possessions. The memories are far more valuable to me.

 So my friends and I got the urge to do a cross country road trip a couple months back, though at the time we didn’t know where. Then one night Bobby, my roommate, was watching Man vs. Food or something, and they were eating some Chicagodeep dish pizza. So, naturally, we decided we wanted Chicagodeep dish bad enough to drive 15 hours to get it. We talked about going to St. Louis on the way there and Memphis on the way back, butMemphis was cut out of our plans in the end, much to my chagrin.

 Without going into every detail, we did St. Louisas best we could in one night. We saw that stupid arch, ate BBQ at Pappy’s Smokehouse (though they were out of ribs), and partied on Soulard St. With our three days in Chicago we ate all the deep dish and Chicago dogs we could handle, pub crawled in Wrigleyville, saw the bean at Millennium Park, walked the Navy Pier and beaches, and had our fair share of the local 312 and Green Line beers. The only other thing I would have liked to do is see the city from on top of the Willis (Sears) Tower, though we decided against it.

 In the end, the best part is always spending time with my friends. Bobby is my travel buddy, and is almost always down to travel when I am. I probably wouldn’t get to take as many trips as I do if he wasn’t always on board. My other friend Ryan and I have never gotten to travel with each other except for our friends wedding once in Oklahoma. He’s great because he will literally talk to anyone, anywhere. Then there’s PGL’s own Sarah, a Chicago local, who was our (sort of) tour guide, though she mostly just hung out with us at the bars. I think it’s her fault I spent way more money than I wanted to.

So now I’m back to reality. It goes by too fast every time. When I get back, I’m always glad that I take too many pictures, and never regret spending more money than I meant to. My next trip is to New Orleansin August, another place I’ve never been, and it can’t get here fast enough!