Waukegan, IL

Waukegan, IL November 1971 to February 1972
We went on to Great Lakes Illinois just to the north of Chagio, IL actually closer to the city of Waukegan, IL where we got an apartment on American Ave. It was an older house that had been converted into four apartments. Two down stairs and two up. Of course we got the only one available and upstairs one. Like the one in San Diego it had a livingroom/bedroom combo but the kitchen in this one was quite large, and the bathroom was huge compared to what we had in San Diego. It even had an antique claw-footed bathtub that we fell in love with. It was there that we gave up on the Cyclone and bought a brand new, gloss black Plymouth Duster with a 340 engine. It was a wonderful car that we were to have for a long time. We spent a lot of Lee’s off hours from Engineman school driving the Duster up through Wisconsin and down through Illinois. But it was wintertime and a lot of that driving was done at night so I don’t remember much about all that countryside.
We did make several frequent trips to Racine, Wisconsin to visit some people that Lee had met when he had been Great Lakes before he was sent to San Diego. Carlos and Joan Puig were really nice people. They had a daughter Carla that was
still at home at that time. I think she was just out of high school then. Carlos was a Lutheran minister at that time. He is retired now and he and his family live in Sugarland, TX. Carlos is from Porto Rico and Joan is descended from Russian parents if I remember right.
We were thrilled when there was a snow in November. It was the first time we had seen snow in several years so we had to get out in it and go far a walk on the city streets of Waukegan. It is one of the times I have felt like I was living in a Christmas card. I remember doing that a few times when there was a fresh snowfall when we were living Sandpoint, Idaho.
We were in Waukegan over Christmas and sometime in February Lee finished the naval schooling he was taking. We packed our belongings again, but this time it was into the black Duster. We and the two cats, Tiggy and Nuisance, headed cross country again but this time we were going straight west with no visiting back to Silver City.