About a month ago, Dan and I decided to go visit his parents and some friends in Chicago. Seeing as we are all about time these days — and had several other family members and friends that we wanted to see between here and the Midwest — we decided to make it a road trip. So we packed up the Civic and set out on Friday, February 13. Although we weren’t sure about the logic of taking a 5,000-mile road-trip in the middle of winter, we got very lucky with the road conditions and passed through only two mild snowstorms.

We were equipped with a Magellan Roadmate that was Dan’s birthday gift from his parents this year, as well as Dan’s iPhone. Between these two gadgets, we were able to keep an eye on the weather, find non-fast-food restaurants in random towns, and entertain ourselves with a range of podcasts (a few favorites: Stuff You Should Know and the New Yorker’s Fiction Podcast).

Between Seattle and Chicago, we visited one of my dear college friends, several members of the Beller clan, and also stopped by Dan’s alma mater, the University of Illinois. It was a great trip and we documented much of it in the video below. Stay tuned for another short video of our return trip.

(Hint: The video quality is better if you hit the red “HQ” button.)