Town Hunt degenerates into Egg Hunt

Diary

On-and-off rain, gray skies, but warm enough to drive with the windows open. Looked at the town I might want to live in after returning from the Netherlands: Bartlett. Bartlett Illinois.

Every train station needs a bar across the street. Bartlett's is "Lucky Jack's," a place I can always come back to when navigating.
 

An example of the houses around the main area, along the road from the rail station to the city park a few blocks north.
 

But something else was happening--an Easter Egg Hunt for the children, and by more than ten times the largest egg hunt in my experience. I didn't know they had them so big--perhaps 300 children.
 

The kids don unlikely armor and ribbons, and a local father dispenses battle advice...
 

..and before I knew it the little monsters charged towards me, like the start of an eighteenth-century battle line. An Armageddon for eggs under their shoes. Messy.
 

..words cannot describe the carnage and horror as the little savages--no, I can't go on, it was simply too awful...
 

Click here to for a movie (big file, 1 MB, whence 3 minutes' download time by phone modem) of the Bartlett Egg Hunt and its chaos, captured by my little handheld digital camera on Auto.

Running into that was a nice accident, and just the excuse I needed to check out Lucky Jack's, to drink away the horror. I was not alone in seeking solace--as it turns out, the place was full of middle-aged men drinking away the recent, all-too-vivid horror of battle.

Tomorrow...into Chicago! A great city and my new home. Well, my home after the Netherlands...