Late Saturday night/Sunday morning nature put on quite a thunder and lightning show along with, of course, the obligatory rain. It poured! By Sunday morning it was still raining off and on but we were able to get packed up and on our way without getting too soaked. We stopped at Super Smokers BBQ for some take away, namely half a smoked chicken and an order of those delicious burnt ends. The chicken went in the cooler, for later, while the burnt ends came in the car with us for nibbles along the way. Lunch on the go... Yummm!
Our destination for Sunday was the Crazy Horse Campground just outside of Jacksonville, Illinois. Fairly easy drive except about 15 kms or so before we got there our car went into the "no power" mode reminiscent of our drive into Gallup New Mexico three and a half months ago. Since it was Sunday, we decided to try to get to the campground and worry about the car on Monday. There is a Nissan dealership in Jacksonville. We made it to the campground and had a nice chat with Andy (we think he is one of, if not the, owners). We told him about our car and asked if he happened to have any engine oil available and sure enough he did. While he went to get it, we opened the hood on the car and checked the oil level. Sure enough, not even registering on the dipstick. This is a tad weird because we have had four oil changes since the incident in Gallup and have had no issues with engine oil. Anyway, we added about a quart and a half before it showed as normal on the dipstick. We let the car sit for a bit, checked the oil again then took a drive into town. Car ran fine! Again, since it was Sunday, not a lot of places open so we drove across Jacksonville to the Walmart and picked up a 5 gallon container of engine oil. We'll start checking it quite regularly now!!!! While in Jacksonville we stopped for an ice cream and peanut butter milkshake. Very refreshing. Anyway, thanks to Andy for helping us out, and by the way, this is quite a nice campground.
Monday we continued north in Illinois, stopping for a lunch of chef salad and omelet in Louie's Diner in Macomb. It is a little hole in the wall diner just off the town square. The waitress was being run off her feet when she stumbled and dropped some dishes that, of course, smashed to bits. A guy who must be a regular customer stood up and said to her, "You are really busy, I'll clean that up for you". How nice is that! After lunch it was on to Rock Island, just across the river from Davenport Iowa. They call it Quad Cities as there are four cities sort of all connected. We stayed at the Rock Island/Quad Cities KOA. After getting checked in, we headed off in search of a Starbucks and a couple of iced lattes. It only took 3 tries, on our GPS, to arrive at a Starbucks that was actually there; the other two were no where to be seen! For dinner we picked up some deli and salad fixings from a HyVee grocery store. Late afternoon we met a guy who is bicycling the Mississippi Valley. He started his trip in Bemidji, Minnesota and estimates it will take him about 6 weeks to get to New Orleans. Oh, let's not forget to mention that this guy is 76 years old!
Tuesday we headed north east across Illinois towards Chicago with our destination being the Chicago Northwest KOA in Union, Illinois. After duly researching for RV parks in the Chicago vicinity this one appeared to be about the best and closest into the city. We checked in early afternoon and paid for six nights as we plan to see the Cubs tomorrow and the White Sox on Sunday. Since it was early to mid afternoon we headed down the highway to the Time Out Sports Bar and Grill for some lunch. On the door, they have a sign saying "Due to this being a family restaurant, no biker colors are allowed!" and just to reinforce the idea, there is a second one on the second door you go through to get into the place. Hmmm... where someone is making a rule, there is usually a reason. We watched a ball game on TV while eating our way through somewhat mediocre, to be generous, salad and burger. Afterwards we drove into Marengo for gas and to Sullivan's grocery for more deli and salad stuff for dinner. We are finding that in the heat spell, we are currently going through, we don't have much for appetite. Back at the KOA we immediately hit the pool. This one is a little colder that the last few we have been in but could still be colder for our tastes.
When we checked into the KOA, the woman at the desk gave us all sorts of travel info related to getting into and out of Chicago. We were also told, and we heard it many more times over the next few days, that there are only two seasons in Chicago - winter and construction. She recommended we take the Wrigley Express bus from Schaumburg, a Chicago northwest suburb, if the only reason we are going into town is to see the Cubs play.... AND to give ourselves lots of extra time because of the construction on I-90.
We took her advice. Wednesday morning we decided to catch the 11:00 AM express bus which would get us to the park over an hour before the game started at 1:08 PM. So we left the KOA at 9:30 for the estimated 20 (by mapquest.com) minute drive. The drive actually took over an hour so we had only a bit of time to whip into the Whole Foods next door to the bus station, for a quick bite to eat. The express bus arrived pretty much on time...
... and we got on the first of 6 buses (we were told there would be at least that many). The bus left a few minutes early and took well over an hour more to get to Wrigley Field. We were really glad we took the bus because traffic around the ball park was pure mayhem! Anyway, we were finally at Wrigley Field...
We picked up our tickets at the Will Call window. Lucky we bought them online as the game was said to be a sellout. After entering the stadium we bought our usual souvenirs then began the long trek up the many ramps to level 5 where we had seats looking down the first base line...
... but, more importantly, we were definitely in the shade on another hot day!
On this day we were treated to an excellently pitched game by Cubs starter Jon Lester...
... who fanned 14 batters over eight innings and the Cubs sent the fans home happy with a 3-2 win.
Thursday we decided to brave the traffic and drive into the western suburb of Oak Park to visit and take a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio. We avoided most of the I-90 construction by sticking to US-20 but it was a long slow drive through many of the connected towns of west Chicagoland. We arrived, found a place to park then went into the museum store to see about the next tour. We skipped the next one so we would have time to get some lunch. That gave us an hour to go walk down the street, find a place to eat and get back to the museum to start the tour. We decided on Giordano's, a pizza chain we have seen a number of times. Not a good choice. Kris ordered a salad and Brian ordered a small thin crust pizza. Kris' salad came right away but it was over 20 minutes later that Kris, having finished her salad, questioned the waitress about the pizza. "Oh, they had trouble with the thin crust, it shouldn't be much more that a few more minutes". By this time we were down to less than 15 minutes to get back for the start of the tour. The pizza did arrive a couple of minutes later and was one of the worst we have ever had and after eating a couple of small slices we left the rest behind. Won't try one of these places again... terrible service, not so good food!
We made it back with a few minutes to spare before the tour started. The tour started with the house exterior with a talk about the general building structure and the grounds...
... then into the house where the woodwork and stained/leaded glass were pretty spectacular, but a bit hard to get really good pics...
... more pics around the house are on our Picasa album (week 19) for this trip. Excellent tour! Afterwards we found a local Starbucks for a couple of iced lattes before heading back to the KOA and an early evening dip in the pool. For dinner we drove into the nearby small town of Union. First try was a tavern on the main drag (main being generous... maybe a block and a half long) but it was pretty dreary and uninviting so we went across the street to Checkers II lounge and restaurant. What a pleasant surprise! The place was packed with diners with one empty table so no wait. This is not a big place but we figured that most every adult in this small town must be out for dinner tonight. It didn't take long to find out why they were so busy. It is billed as serving "American food", but it definitely has a German flavor. Kris ordered a plate of different German sausages and Brian ordered a pork schnitzel, both of which came with a ton of potatoes and other veggies. Way too much so about half of each came home for dinner tomorrow. Excellent!
Friday was our designated "downtown Chicago" day. In the pool Thursday evening we chatted with a couple from Kansas City. Aside from a chat about the great KC BBQ, they reminded us about the commuter train that has a stop in Crystal Lake, about 15 miles from the KOA. The KOA lady had told us about this as well when we checked in but it was a case of info overload and we had forgotten and had thought we might brave a drive into the city. Not anymore... We had made pedicure appointments at Nordstrom Spa for 11:00 AM, so caught an early enough commuter train that we could wander around on the Magnificent (Mag) Mile a bit and have a coffee before our appointments. We arrived at the Ogilvie Transportation Center at about 9:30 so lots of time. When we bought our train tickets, in Crystal Lake, the ticket guy told us to "go straight out the door and stay on the second level; continue over (ie above) one street then take the escalator down to street level; walk across the street and down the stairs to the water taxi stand". We followed his advice and before we knew it we were on a water taxi headed for the Mag Mile...
.... it was like being on a vaporetto in Venice again. Very nice on a beautiful sunny morning. The ride was $3 each, the stop where we got off was all of two blocks from Nordstrom and there was a Starbucks right on the corner. How convenient is that!. Along the street there are some really pretty flower beds with some of them sporting cool sculptures of "flowers" made out of old bicycle wheels...
Anyway, our original spa appointments were for 11:00 and 12:00 but they had a cancellation so we were both in at 11:00. Nice and relaxing and the feet felt great afterwards.
Since we were finished an hour earlier than we expected, we decided to walk over to the Frontera Grill for lunch. Many years ago, while in Chicago on a conference, we dined at this restaurant and also bought a cookbook and had it signed by the owner Rick Bayless, the very well known author of Mexican style (with emphasis on Oaxaca) cooking books. As expected there was a line up out the door with a wait of over an hour, but Rick has another restaurant attached to Frontera Grill, so we were able to snare a couple of spots at the bar of Topolobampo which serves the same menu. It was a bit crowded, ie shoulder to shoulder, but the food was fantastic. We both had a bowl of delicious Tortilla Soup, then shared a plate of "Street Food Trio"...
After lunch we walked back to the Mag Mile where we were able to pick up a bus south to the Art Institute of Chicago. We got off the bus about a block before the museum. The sidewalks were absolutely packed with, mostly young, people heading for the Lollapalooza Music Festival kicking off, this afternoon and running through the weekend, in Grant's Park behind the Art Institute. The rather large influx of people into the area also meant that the Art Institute was very crowded. It also seems that whenever you want to see only a few things in a museum, they are at opposite ends in separate buildings that don't connect on every floor. Such was the case here for us today! Our main goals were to see paintings by William Turner...
... and Edward Hopper...
We also wanted to see the large Georges Seurat painting, "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte". While we were able to see it, we didn't get a really good look at it or a chance to take a picture of it because of the large number of people insisting on taking selfies in front of it. Very annoying! Later, it was also very annoying when a young couple spent several minutes trying to position themselves in front of a painting so their friend could take their picture while everyone else had, out of politeness we suppose (something this couple didn't have), to stand aside and wait! ...
... please don't do this in a crowded museum!!!!
On the way home we stopped in at Checkers II again, this time just to sit at the bar and have a couple of glasses of wine after a fairly tiring day. The place was packed again and we even had to wait for a seat at the bar. Eventually some folks at the bar got seated at their table and we were up. The woman tending bar was even nice enough to put the ball game on TV for us. She also told us that they are busy because they draw from numerous other towns, some close by and some quite a bit further out. They have established a large and loyal clientele.
Saturday was a do nothing sort of day. After some reading, knitting and trip planning while having a morning coffee we decided to drive into Schaumburg for a lunch stop at a Chick-fil-A, a fast food chain serving excellent chicken salads, sandwiches etc, then to check out one of the large Menards hardware stores we have seen. Later, on the way back to the KOA we stopped at a LL Bean store, because you can never have too many tote bags, and a World Market to replenish our dwindling strategic wine supply. For dinner we finished off those leftovers from Checkers II.
End of week, but tomorrow is ball game day at U.S. Cellular field to see the Chicago White Sox play. Looking forward to it :-)
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