My Dad doesn't get out much. My Mom has had some health problems, and they tend to stick pretty close to home. He'll get out for a few hours, here and there, usually to go flying. He's a member of a club that owns a few small planes, and the members can use them for a few hours each month. He started flying when he was my age. I've never enjoyed it. I've been in the plane with him a half dozen times, and been on the verge of airsick every time.

So when I asked him if he'd take a road trip to Galena, in the far corner of the state, he wanted to fly there. But the nearest airport is 25 miles away. A short runway. Narrower than the plane is wide. So I dodged that bullet.

Along the way, we made a side trip to Freeport to check the progress on Little Cubs Field. A scaled down replica of Wrigley Field. I was under the impression that this was going to be a playable Little League field. I was misled. It's a playable wiffleball field.

WHY IS LITTLE CUBS FIELD BEING BUILT ON A SMALL SCALE? Little Cubs Field is being built to wiffleball and pee wee level Little League specifications -- instead of a larger size that can be used for standard Little League – because of the costs associated with building a larger venue.Specifically, a traditional Little League field (about 260 linear feet) is much larger than a wiffleball-sized field (approximately 100 feet down the foul lines). That makes the perimeter walls 260% longer, and the square footage of the field goes from 7,854 square feet to 53,094 square feet -- an increase of 676%! As you can imagine, costs for the larger field would almost double. This would increase fundraising demands, labor expenses, material costs, and contractor expenses to very challenging levels.

Wiffle ball is pointless. The kids are more interested in dandelions and the thrill of having a localized exoskeleton in front of their wifflejunk. The cries of "ay, batter, batter" are accompanied by the rhythmic cadence of the kids knocking on their cups.

On the way out of town, we drove past the high school. Illinois has a long history of racially insensitive or just plain "bad touch" team names. The Pekin Chinks. The Freeburg Midgets. The Centralia Orphans. The Hoopeston Cornjerkers. The Hampshire Whip-Purs. But in Freeport? Go, Pretzels, Go! How can you not love that? But it turns out there are two high schools in Illinois that lay claim to the name. New Berlin Jr./Sr. High School claims it, too. And they add the stirring slogan: "Bend 'em, twist 'em, let's go Pretzels."

Thankfully, the schools are over 200 miles apart. We wouldn't bands of pretzel bedecked gangs Fosse-dancing to "When you're a Rod, you're a Rod all the way."

Back on the highway, we headed to Galena. If you know Illinois, you know it's flat. Depressingly flat. "The world is flat"-flat. But when you get out towards the Mississippi River valley, suddenly you encounter beautiful rolling hills and valleys. That part of Illinois was in a driftless zone, and wasn't rolled flat by the glaciers 60,000 years ago (or for those of you who set your clock differently, 4,400 years ago).

If I weren't driving, I would have had some pictures. Or, more accurately, if I weren't driving next to my Dad, I would've been half climbed onto the roof of the car. But I worry about his heart, you know.

Downtown Galena is a tourist trap. But a nice tourist trap. Nothing too terribly tacky. Or so I thought. Going into a shop called the Galena Canning Company, we looked at a wall of hot sauces. The word "hot" has lost it's ability to convey the spiciness of the hot sauce. I knew this from years ago, when you started seeing hot sauces being marketed as "kick ass" and whatnot. Apparently, hot sauce diplomacy has failed, and we now have an ever escalating use of loaded language to express the supreme hotness of one's sauce. There were rows of products with the charming name "The Hottest Fucking Sauce." No asterisk in place of a letter. Just "Fucking". And lots of it. Ok, where can you go from there? "Grandma! Jism! Snausages! Hot Sauce" is the only thing that comes to mind.

They had sample jars of the sauces and dips in the shop, with bowls of pretzles to dip in them. Pretzels. I felt like I was defiling a Freeport High School student with every bite.

We made a few more stops in town. A candy store to pick up a big bag of Haribo Raspberry candy for my Dad (which was the whole reason for going, actually). And to Poopsie's, a nice little gift store. The people working in the store, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, had signs throughout emblazoned with "Save the Boobies!" And the women working in the store had pairs of pink balloons taped to their chests. Poopsie's stocks work by Illinois artist Brian Andreas. His stuff lands just on the tolerable side of treacly for me.

My Dad lost his father when he was five years old. I was convinced, as a child, that he would die young, too. I feel lucky (and a little bit guilty) that I've had him around all of my life, when so many friends of mine have lost parents. I don't spend enough time with my Dad. Or anybody I love, really. How can you?

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