Yesterday morning, we left Chestertown with a minivan full of books and a larger-than-average-sized baby. 15 hours and 764 miles later, we arrived in Chicago. The final few miles of our drive were along Lake Shore Drive, with a stunning view of the Windy City skyline at midnight. I’d really like to show you what it looked like, but we were too lost in the throes of tourist bliss to pull out the camera.

It looked a little something like this, a shot I found on flickr.

It sure is a beautiful city.

Just now, I devoured a beautiful breakfast burrito, again forgetting to take a photo for you all. But seeing it probably would have thrown you into fits of jealous rage, so perhaps it is best that the moment has passed.

As we drove, we kept getting reports from the home front. Apparently, Alden and Kato were having an awful time without us.

Iggy, too, was miserable.

We thought about turning around, but we were almost to Cleveland, where we were going to stop and visit our good friends (and subscribers) Garet and Matt, their daughter Addie, and their very new baby Preston. Though we are usually thoughtless about such things, we had remembered to bring a present for Preston. And Garet and Matt had remembered to get a gift for August.

We got a small rubber giraffe squeaker thing for Preston.

And for August, they got a…

…small rubber giraffe squeaker thing.

We took our baby and giraffe and left as quickly as we could.

Somewhere in the middle of Indiana, August registered his opinion of the fact that we had not yet arrived.

But eventually, we got here, rolled into our beds, and fell into a profound stupor. Now fed, we will drive our car down to the Loop, unload our boxes, and set up our booth.

Starting tomorrow morning, we’ll enter a frantic state of blistering commerce, so I’m not sure when we’ll be able to check in here again. But I’ll post regular updates to Facebook, so check in there for glimpses from the center of the literary universe.

For now, here’s my glimpse across the table. It’s an awfully nice way to start the day.