We arrived to a sopping wet field in the middle of the night to the University of Chicago. To Harrison field, where the Sears Tower stands above, above and farther above. And lawn, the big athletic field, which is our staging ground, is suddenly negotiated in our arrival. How to park on the wet wet field without getting stuck? How to make our arrival as non-obtrusive as possible?

Despite the initial sticky ground, it was like arriving at the promised land. After pouncing about from city to city and having at least a few days with no real showers, we come to the venerable University of Illinois Chicago, where there are not only showers, but a pool and porta-potties. UIC, which is so excited to have us we're putting on our film festival as well. Where every morrning a flood of students pour off of the blue line and past our buses to school. Good morning. We'll be parking in your planet for the next week. Please stop on by.

The Green Screens Film festival included shorts from Live Earth and the Global Oneness Project. To elaborate: you might have seen one of many concerts on television last year, performing all over the globe with recycled oil drum stages. Yeah, that was Bono and Zach Braff and a group of scientists in Antartica. There was also a series of short films: documentaries about communities affected by climate change, and short comedic films about actions folks can take to save the planet. There's a short about an Alaskan Island whose permafrost is melting at an alarming rate, and several films about changing lightbulbs.

The Global Oneness Project, in contrast, tracks down leaders in the nonprofit and humanitarian sectors, as well as spiritual leaders and local heroes. In watching the series of short films, you meet a woman who is playing soccer with children in South Africa to educate them about AIDS, a woman who is working with gangs in Ecuador, a man who is growing rare and beautiful food crops in the name of biodiversity, and folks who have devoted their lives to one god or another but still see the planet as one giant community.

Our first day of our event was drizzled upon and then: rain. The most rain ever to fall on Chicago in one day: 6.5 inches. Pounding, serious, heavy rain. A brief break in the weather gave us a chance to break down our Health and Healing tent to prevent it from getting further waterlogged. In the rain of the rest of the day we broke down the carnival.

Despite the weather, our workshop dome stayed up and functional. Tom had spent his morning on the phone warning vendors and workshop leaders about the weather: one workshop showed up anyway, bringing with them several guest and volunteers: what ensued in the rain in the dome depsite the rain was an impromptu seminar on sustainability and administraion in Chicago. Folks from UIC, the City of Chicago, and other green organizations had a chance to connect for the first time in our pouring rain. When those of us who were ankle-deep in mud heard what was goin on, it gave us the strength to keep going.

The weather has been extreme thus far: extreme heat in Denver, rain in Chicago, avoiding flooded highways in Indiana. Later in the trip we'll be headed through the post-hurricane gulf. In many ways this feels like the climate change cleanup tour. Deep breath and: onward.

New and more: a day of huddled meetings in the rain.