Monday the 30th: A smattering of activities

 *The Son was struggling with being on the beach (long story) so we dug a hole down to wet sand. He really enjoyed seeing the entropy of the sand work its way back into the hole.

*Saturday night we went to St. Stanislaus in Michigan City for Mass and then collected supplies to grill. I've never seen a church quite this green before, but they really carried it off well. They had a nice real organ, no cantor, and a Mass setting I haven't heard before.

 *This was the cute sign at our hotel. Again we never met the innkeepers or received any kind of online receipt, but the stay went very smoothly regardless. 

 

 

Friday the 27th: Dunes and...Chicago?

 The next morning we did the Dunes Succession Trail. This includes a hike of many, many steps up to a point where you are supposed to be able to see Chicago. I'm sure you can when there are not fires burning in Canada, sending lots of hydrocarbons in the air your way. We were able to see Gary, Indiana. We walked the trail from the beach to the back, which meant we had a little trouble finding the start and had to walk through beach sand first. This made my dad pretty nervous as it was difficult, so he avoided the sand the rest of the trip.

 

 

Thursday the 26th: Central Avenue Beach

 The evening of our South Bend day, we wanted to go to our first Indiana Dunes/Lake Michigan beach. The closest one to us was Central Avenue Beach, a 5 minute drive away. We weren't there quite at sunset, but we did watch the sun go down and enjoy the sand and water. We never submerged in the Lake during our time there as it was still quite chilly.

 

 

Wednesday the 25th: South Bend, IN

 *My brother got two degrees at Notre Dame, so we took the opportunity of being less than an hour away to stop by. He toured us around campus, we drove past his church and apartment, ate lunch at Fiddler's Hearth, and then headed to a couple wineries/orchards to pick up provisions. While in South Bend we stopped by two different Italian delis/restaurants for more provisions. We do like our grocery stores. For supper we drove to New Carlisle to eat at Moser's, probably our second favorite schnitzel place.

In Notre Dame we toured the admin building (inside the golden dome) and the library. I still have not seen inside the church, but yet again there was a wedding going on so we couldn't stop by. 

 

 

Tuesday the 24th: Al and Sally's

 We rented the innkeeper's cottage at Al and Sally's Motel in The Pines for the next portion of our trip. We wanted a place with three bedrooms, and we wanted a kitchen so that we could do some cooking after eating out most of the time in Chicago. We had a king, queen, and two bunkbeds in three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and plenty of room to spread out here. The only downside was the very bright security lights outside, accompanied by thin curtains, that made it pretty hard for our dark loving souls to sleep. We ended up hanging our comforters over the windows, and that helped a lot. All in all we were happy with our stay here. We never met the owners, but they were very responsive to our questions.

 

 

Monday the 23rd: Skydeck

 Because we did the City Pass, we did a few things that otherwise we would probably never spend money on. Chief among those is the Skydeck, the 103rd floor of the Sears/Willis Tower. I have a fear of heights, so mostly I stood in the middle and looked out and not down. Everyone else really enjoyed the trip; the Son had no fear, but both mom and Husband, once standing on the glass ledge, felt some trepidation. I didn't even try the glass ledge. At the bottom of the tower is a really nice History of Chicago museum; I can't say I learned anything, but it confirmed that I had done good research for the trip.

 We also used the City Pass to see: Architectural Tour, Aquarium, Art Museum, and Planetarium. The Aquarium and Skydeck are the two required, and then you can choose three other places to use the pass. For us it was a good deal, but on a future trip I would see less museums and leave more time for walking the streets and seeing architecture and parks and beaches. 

Friday the 20th: Corncobs and the Bean

 *One of my favorite parts of Chicago is architecture. There are so many famous, unique buildings and sculptures, so many fun things to see. The "corncob" towers were built in 1967, and their architect (Bertrand Goldberg) felt that circles, not squares or blocks, were more natural in nature and thus buildings should reflect that. The lower levels are all parking garage.

*My mom saw Cloudgate, aka the Bean, for the first time, so we took the obligatory reflecting picture for her. It was dusk, thus the cloudiness of the picture; also, I'm just not a great photographer. 

 

 

Thursday the 19th: Happy Juneteenth!

 Happy Juneteenth! We spent it tearing down tree limbs and helping a sibling at the lawyer's. Today's pictures are from our hotel room in Chicago, above the James M. Nederlander Theater on Randolph. We were only four blocks from Millennium Park and had plenty of room and a parking garage next door. Our only quibble was that there were no laundry facilities anywhere nearby, so we had to pack enough to make it to our next stop in Indiana.

 

 

Wednesday the 18th: Funk's Grove, Normal, Stickney

*This little piece of the trip was the only time I slyly convinced my fellow travelers to join me on a Route 66 adventure. We chose to leave Springfield after lunch so we could make it to Funke's Grove for Maple Sirup when they opened at 1, they have been selling sirup here for almost 100 years. They also make wonderful maple sugar candy. Then we followed the Route into Bloomington and Normal, stopping at the only English style gas station on the route, still open with a nice gift shop (http://www.ryburnplace.com/). Terri told us about the Normal picture op just as you leave town. From here we joined the interstate and drove to a friend's recommendation for supper, Villa Nova Stickney pizza. We were disappointed the dining room and restaurant weren't open, but we found a nice park to eat in and enjoyed our pizza before heading to the hotel.

 

 

Tuesday the 17th: Lincoln's Tomb

 Unexpectedly, Lincoln's tomb is not at his Library and Musuem, as it is with Eisenhower and Truman. Lincoln is buried in the nearby cemetery along with all of his family except for one son (that son is at Arlington). The tomb is appropriately grand and fabulous, with a little hallway you walk through that contains small bronze statues of different points in his life and different clips of speeches. There are many unusual tombs nearby, so we spent a little time looking at them as well before finishing a loop through town and then going to Head West subs before heading East towards Chicago.

Monday the 16th: Springfield

The middle picture is actually from Hannibal: besides postcards, one souvenir from this trip was this lovely rainbow necklace with a loop so it can be used as a lanyard. It will be quite stylish for my id next school year.

Before leaving Springfield we did a good walk at Southwind park; the arches are from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and the sunflower is part of a solar sundial. Lots of really fun things to explore.