yeah JB.. i didnyt look it up but thats usually where its at against our dollar..
we used to be like thatr with canada..i remember when a dollar here was worth 1.50$ in canada back in the mid 1990s bc that was the reason why we went there on vacation..my mom was a single parent with 3kids andso using her head, she and my grandma took us to toronto on the suggestion of my uncle who would go up there everyear to fish for muskie. we stopped at family in detroit on the way there and back for the night each way but really the only reason why we went was because my uncle flat out said "100$ here is worth $150 there" i remember my uncle promising it was something like that and that it would be well worth it and that we will be able to do and see and buy more things because its just cheaper.. the only thing was i dont know what my mom was expecting cause it wasnt the best trip we ever had. it was a huge city and not my moms style for vacations,it was a very metropolitan trip and i dont know if she was thinking "its canada, its prolly like wyoming" or something, you know like some smallish country like type town and not a city like chicago. we hit the zoo and some museums but it wasnt the slow paced make no plans type of trip that my mom prefers, and it was the only trip we had growing up that was to a "big city" and im pretty sure we came home early from it. theer wasnt really the internet yet so you cant look everything up online liek you can now. i remeber my mom telling me why she took us to canada that one time and she said "your uncle suggested something new instead of going back to tennessee and when he said "you can go and spend 100bucks and get a hotel room for the night or you can go check out canada where that same 100$ gets you a hotel room plus a trip to the zoo and then dinner" and being a single mom that extra 50bucks is really important. we went to gatlinburg i think 7x in 10years, maybe more i dont even know cause they all kind of blend together but thats bc we had a football tournemnt over thanksgiving and me and my brother played and my sister who is between my brother and I in age was a cheerleader..so i went twice for football and so did my brother and my sister went once as a cheeleader and then we went there to vacation cause ther eis so mucb to do and bc with football thats all it really was, football and then the go carts. gatlinburg is like the wisconsin dells of the south except bigger and with mnuxh more to do cause not only is it a giant dells, theres also dollywood (a mini great america owned by dolly parton) and the great smokey mountains. thats why we went so much cause there was just so much to do an that area.
i will say if youre from chicago and you have never been to the dells youre either really sheltered and i feel sorry for you, maybe you kinda poor and your family couldnt afford it, which is fine and understandable or you grew up very rich and didnt have to settle for something like the dells. by that i mean if you have money and you can jump on a plane at 6am and be in disney by noon...and i say that specifically cause thats a true story, a freind of mines family tradition for 10th bdays. millionaires of course but i guess his grandpa did that when his dad turned 10 as a suprise cause i guess as a kid he always wanted to go to disneyland but thats inb cali and when disney world opened in florida in the early 70s it was just a much easier trip and plus at 10 your not really a little kid anymore and you can behave normally and actually remember the trip and appreciate the suprise that it was. so thats what his dad did with his kids too cause it was the best thing that happened to him in his childhood. i only found out about this cause i was friends with him when his little sister turned 10 and she was able to bring along a friend and their mom went and we threw a huge party. his brother was supposed to be at the house watching us but he stayed at his apt in the cityand we had the place to ourselves that was one of our first epic parties cause we all had girlfriends and hes gota huge house with an inground pool that won city awards for best pool and landscape and the water changed 3different colors and it was just one of the first times the 5 of us all crashed for the entire weekend with our girlfriends without going home and it felt like we where adults with our own house and wives and they cooked us dinner each night and it was just perfect for the time, and we all became better friends after that.
whats fucked up is his little sister is like 21-22now and fine as hell, like for real she aint so little anymore. but anyways even though they fly to florida for weekend trips to disney like it was an hour drive like its great america, i still think they have been to the dells once or twice bc its just so close and its just the chicago thing to do over extended weekends. you can get there in 3hours so its just a great weekend destination for chicagoans with tons of water parks especially the god sent indoor ones ( there is nothing better then an 80degree indoor water park when theres a foot of snow on the ground in the middle of january) and go carts and just about every other carnival type rides and games and just so much more cause its a whole town not just an amuzement park, its an amusement town and so you can do a whole lot in the course of a weekend and then be able to drive home on monday..my mom would always take mondyas off instead of fridays like most people so we would get that extra day at the water park or wherever we were at and basically have the place to ourselves..she hated the fact of sitting in traffic on the way home from a little vacation plus its easier to keep track of 3kids when theres 2/3 less people around then the day before. so instead of checking out and coming home on sunday witheveryone else, we did that on mondays. everyx christmas break after xmas we would go and hit up the indoor waterparks and then at least once in the summer we would go and hit the outdoor ones. its the best when you stay at the hotel that the water park is located cause you can go in for free and my mom could go back to the room and take a nap and leave us there or we where able to go multiple times in a day cause why come back from dinner and mini golf and just sit around watchiung tv the rest of the night when you can take your book and let the kids run around and tire themselves out for a couple hours.
