The Path Taken

My daughter chose an apartment based on her father’s time on the Illinois Prairie Path bike trail.  Allow me to explain.

Around the time Clare was in eighth grade, I got very serious about biking.  Metropolitan Chicago is great for this sort of thing.  To those of us born here, almost all “hills” are the work of engineers, viz., overpasses.  Just about everything else is flat land and easy to bike across.

Among my discoveries twelve or so years ago was the Prairie Path, which follows along an abandoned interurban line (think “L” line running through the countryside) that goes west to Billy Graham’s Wheaton before heading north to Elgin, where they used to make those wonderful watches.  At the time I was riding this particular stretch of the Path a lot, developers were working to turn an old Ovaltine plant into the anchor for an apartment complex.

Ovaltine just happened to be my Grandma Gurke’s favorite drink.  I took it as a sign one of her grandchildren should live there.  The more I biked, the more convinced I was that it ought to happen.  My sister Betty was thinking of moving back home from Texas, and I kept telling her to check out the Ovaltine plant.  Only she died before she could make the move.

Apparently, her niece had been listening, too.  When it came time for Clare and her fiancé Chris to find an apartment, they tried Ovaltine and really liked it.  (Please forgive the pun.)  If Chris can figure out where to put his bike, he may use it to commute to his coaching job at Elmhurst College, which is no more than two or three miles from the path.  So, there you have it, destiny by bike path.