Quick Trip to Chicago

Needing to get away from family drama I escaped for the weekend to Chicago. It was also a great chance to visit my cousin Joey. We haven’t gotten to spend significant amounts of time together in years. So this was the perfect opportunity.

Besides, I love Chicago. It is one of my favorite cities. It is sophisticated without snobbery. The people are wonderful. There is wonderful architecture, great restaurants and a fantastic nightlife.

Since I was in desperate need of a change of scenery I really didn’t care what we did. I just wanted to hang out, have fun and forget about my life for a minute.

Continental Airlines wasn’t really helping with that endeavor. The flight from Cleveland to Chicago, which is only an hour was delayed for five hours. Yes, count them, five. It would have been faster for me to drive to Chicago. We were supposed to arrive at 7:30 p.m. instead I got in at 12:30 a.m. Then Joey and I stayed up talking until 4:30 a.m. It was great but we got a very late start on Friday.

After a yummy breakfast we headed into the city. It was so cold that we decided to do drive-by siteseeing. I’ve been to Chicago several times so I was cool with this. Honestly, we were so busy gabbing that I didn’t really pay much attention to anything. However, on one of the backstreets we found an amazing view of the city. So we drove through this deserted construction site and saw that there were two cars already back there. Joey pointed out that they were probably having an affair. I wanted to take a picture but he reminded me that we were in mafia town, so probably not a good idea.

We then ventured towards Oz Park, took some silly pics and went off to meet his friends for drinks at Side Track, the premier video gay bar in Chicago, so they said. We ended our night at a severely greasy spoon called Melrose.

Saturday we still didn’t make it out very early, but thats ok cause we’re off to see grandma. It was great to be with her. Sometimes no one gives you love, encouragement, and support like grandma. She surprised us by having our favorite meal – her traditional soup and brownies. It was hard to say goodbye to her but we had tickets to Jersey Boys and had to get back to the city. Jersey Boys is so much fun. I forgot how many great songs the Four Seasons have. We had another great night capped at Miller’s Pub, right by the theatre. It had a great vibe.

On my last day in Chicago I did the one thing I really wanted to do, visit Millenium Park, designed by my favorite architect, Frank Gehry. The park is spectacular and the view of the city is too. I highly recommend a visit, just go when its above 10 degrees. I’ve heard tale of the lake effect but until you experience the wind humming off the water to slice you in two, you have no idea. Brunch was at Ann Sather’s in Andersonville which was delicious. It is also a cute little neighborhood full of fun stores. I’d love to go back there and explore some more.

Sadly, it was time to go home. I had a delightful, wonderful time with some of my favorite people. We had a blast. It was just what I needed. Next time I think I’ll visit when its a bit warmer.

Filed under: Mi Familia, Pop Culture, Travelling , Andersonville, Ann Sather's, Chicago, cleveland, cousin, escape, Four Seasons, Frank Gehry, Frankie Valli, Jersey Boys, Millenium Park

Lisa’s Ohio Adventure

My friend Lisa, from CA, braved the midwest frontier and ventured forth to visit me this week. She was here for five glorious days. We had a great time and we even managed to fill three whole days with things to do. LOL, who knew there was so much to entertain us in Ohio. There are even things we didn’t get to, I was shocked.

Since this was really my first foray into Ohio tourist activities we went to Borders to see if there was a travel book or other tourist info for the area, we found nothing. But after scouring the internet we found interesting sites beyond the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame and Football Hall of Fame, including culinary delights. I think we pretty much ate our way through the state. That is the great Ohio activity.

We ended her first day in Ohio with a trip to the $1 Theatre to see The Bucket List, which was surprisingly boring. I thought for sure with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson it would be good, but not so much. The best part was the final 15 minutes. Very disappointing.

Our culinary highlight of the day was a trip to Quaker Steak & Lube for the best wings on the planet. We tried four different sauces: Premium Garlic, Thai-R-Tracker, Asian Sesame and Louisiana Licker. We did not go for the atomic sauce you need to sign a waiver to try.

Our culinary highlight of day 2 came early, a breakfast at Cracker Barrel. The pancakes are a must have with real maple syrup. Our next stop was in Akron to visit Stan Hywet Hall, the former home of the Sieberlings (founder of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company). It was spectacular. The home and grounds, built to resemble an English country estate, were amazing and beautiful. They were even having a vintage 1840s baseball game going on. Everyone was yelling, “huzzah.” Beyond that I have no idea what the rule difference is, but they looked cute in their knickers.

We then high-tailed it to Cleveland to try and get to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before it closed. While we made the trip in only 30 minutes it was only about an hour before they closed. So we decided the hefty $22 was too much to pay for such a short period of time. We did get to walk around the lobby and store. Having been there before I knew Lisa wasn’t missing much, but sometimes you have to see for yourself that it isn’t worth it. She was a little disappointed. We did get to tour a bit of the lakefront and see the Browns stadium. We were both amazed at how brown the lake water is.

We had some time to kill so we decided to take advantage of the Garmin Nuvi and see what it recommended in the area. We were shocked to discover that the Memphis Pink Palace was only 1.6 miles from where we were. Even though the associated phone number had a 901 area code I decided to check it out anyway. We ended up in a very unsavory part of Cleveland. It seems that the fine Garmin programmers and their check systems missed that the zip code was wrong. Then Lisa saw that the there was a Dolly Madison bakery nearby. She was excited to see if they had zingers. But instead Garmin took us to an empty lot. So sad. The lesson is you can never fully trust your GPS, always doublecheck.

Day two we went to Amish Country. It was actually a lot of fun. Our first stop was The Amish Door for a delicious country lunch. Then we visited Wendell August, a tin forging workshop. We even got the chance to hammer out our frustrations on a sample.

No trip to the Amish country is complete without a visit toYoder’s Amish Experience. We got to take a tour of a real Amish home, ride in a real Amish buggy, and see how a real Amish farm works. We came to the conclusion that for a culture that wants to stay away from the world they’re very fond of entertaining it and selling it baked goods. I have to say the culinary highlight of the day were the cookies and cakes made by Rachel at the Amish Experience. They were so good.

Day three: We thought about heading back to Cleveland but honestly there is not a whole lot to do there. We found a cultural garden but it turned out each nationality was only represented by a rock, not a full garden or even a representation of the plants of that country. So not that festive. Instead we went back to Amish country to visit a victorian house museum in Millersburg, Coblentz chocolate factory and Heini’s Cheese chalet. It was another delightful day in the country. We couldn’t have had better weather. There were actual blue skies and it was sunny. A rare day in Ohio indeed.

The culinary highlight was not our lunch at the Millerburg Hotel. It was built in 1847 and the food was as tasteful as if it had been made then. Not good. The culinary highlight of the day was at Coblentz and the most delicious buckeyes. Mmmm tasty. Our day in the country was great but tiring, who knew fresh air was so exhausting.

Lisa left on Wednesday morning. We laughed a lot, saw a lot and it was a great visit. It was nice to have a friend in Ohio.

Filed under: Friendshipping, Living in Ohio, Pop Culture , akron, amish, amish country, cleveland, rock and roll hall of fame, stan hywet, victorian house, visiting Ohio

Indoor Amusement

Today Mike, Rocio and I took the boys to the IX Indoor Amusement Park. That’s right, all the joy of an outdoor carnival inside. Part of the Cleveland Convention Center is converted for one month of the year into an indoor playground with rides, cotton candy, hot dogs, random vendors and cheesy souvenirs.

It was kind of odd. But what else are you supposed to do in the middle of the winter in Ohio? I’ll ignore the fact that its almost April and its still 30 degrees.

The boys were so excited they couldn’t hardly stand it. I think they were just as thrilled to go to the IX as they were to go to Disneyland. All a matter of perspective I guess. Still a great half day trip. We had a lot of fun.

Filed under: Living in Ohio , cleveland, indoor amusement park, nephews