Best Song Lyrics (Part XXV)

Over the summer, I spend many evenings on my deck listening to mellow rock.  This is usually done by tuning into the Yacht Rock channel on satellite radio, or something similar on another station or streaming service.

In doing this, you hear a lot of the same artists, like Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers.  But one group I noticed move of this summer was 1970s and 80s icon Chicago.

Chicago has/had such a unique sound, thanks to with the brass horns the band often put out front.  They also had some tunes with unique lyrics, like Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is, and the strangely titled, marching band favorite 25 or 6 to 4.  (It's the time of day, either 3:35 or 3:34.)

For me, however, none of their many hits had lyrics as good as the classic song Saturday In The Park.  It really made you feel like you were spending the day at the park.  [I've edited the following to avoid repetition.]

Saturday in the park

I think it was the Fourth of July

People dancing,

People laughing

A man selling ice cream

Singing Italian songs

Eh Cumpari, ci vo sunari

Can you dig it? (yes, I can)

And I've been waiting such a long time

For Saturday

People talking

Really smiling

A man playing guitar

And singing for us all

Will you help him change the world

Can you dig it? (yes, I can)

And I've been waiting such a long time

For today

Slow motion riders fly the colours of the day

A bronze man still can tell stories his own way

Listen children all is not lost

All is not lost, oh no, no

Funny days in the park

Every day's the Fourth of July

Funny days in the park

Every day's the Fourth of July

I-80 East

I made a one-way road trip from Des Moines to Philadelphia last week.  Among other things, this provided me with 1100 miles worth of observations while driving east, with all but the last 100 miles or so on Interstate 80:

* Iowa gets stereotyped for flat terrain, but across the fruited plain east of the Mississippi River, it's actually much flatter through the northern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.  I suppose this is due to the proximity of the Great Lakes, but I never hear anyone refer to Ohio being flat.

* Once you cross the state line from Ohio into Pennsylvania, it suddenly gets hilly, and you spend most of the road time crossing the Allegheny Mountains, then the Pocono Mountains.  A much more scenic drive, but a much more difficult drive.

* Although I missed the toll roads in Illinois the lead to Chicago, it was all tollways through Indiana and Ohio.  Why?  The roads weren't any better in those states.  I was particularly discouraged about this in Indiana, a not-so-populous state that can't possibly need toll/road money any more than Iowa, which has no tolls on I-80.

* Did you know that there's an RV / Motor Home Hall of Fame and Museum along I-80 in Elkhart, Indiana.  Again, why?  This was the most memorable, cheezy site of interest along the way.

* It's no surprise that traffic was thick near Chicago, even mid-day.  But the worst of it was eastern Pennsylvania.  Once you get to Allentown, it's high traffic the rest of the way, because for some reason millions of people choose to live on a tiny section of America on the northeastern seaboard.

* Thank you to Google Maps, and Waze, and any other tech app that helps people with directions and traffic.  It's hard to remember how people could successfully made epic drives with only paper maps at their disposal.