Pretty much the entire time in western Illinois was spent with family. There were a lot of people I haven't seen in decades. Of course, they recognized me, but I didn't remember meeting them when I was 5. It was good to catch up though. The cool thing was that the childhood home of my grandpa and great aunt was just down the street. The current owners had offered to take a look at the house. The house had changed a lot since the 1940s, but it was cool to see the room that my grandpa and great aunt slept in as a kid, and the stories that came with it.
In true farm fashion, there were cows in the barn. And it smelled like a farm, too. Two of the cows were friendly but 1 was very standoffish. The cows even had an air conditioned stall to help their coats get thicker.
The barn had 2 stories. The bottom floor was normal farm stuff. On the top floor was the hay loft but it was a basketball court. This was really cool to see. Also, we found a portrait that my grandpa had made of my great aunt when he was about 6 years old. She commonly goes by DP and this is my grandpa's rendition of her.
Barn basketball court
After seeing this group of family, I ended up driving to the middle of Wisconsin to see my aunt and uncle. Along the way, I had to stop at New Glarus Brewing and sample some of their fine beers.
New Glarus Brewing on a nice Wisconsin afternoon
Once I got to my aunt and uncle's place. They had a new addition to the family. The day prior, they had picked up a Great Dane mix from a rescue. Over the course of 2 days there, he really opened up and got a lot more comfortable around everyone. Also, while in Wisconsin, you have to do two things: beer and boating. Lots of beer was consumed and we even went out on the lake. This was the first time that I got to drive a boat and it was fun. After the boating, we got back to the family's place and drank more beer. At some point, it was decided to go pick some raspberries and eat them with ice cream. We ended up getting over a pint of raspberries and they were delicious with some vanilla ice cream. I really need to get a raspberry patch in my yard.
He finally was named Bowser
So delicious
Next up was a drive to Chicago to visit 2 of my cousins. The first order of business was a Cubs game. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I grew up in a family of Cubs fans and I had never been. Well, that changed and since this is very likely my only time at Wrigley Field, I sprung for some nice seats. There was a 90 minute rain delay and then the game went to extra innings. At that point, it was approaching 11pm and I was exhausted, so my cousin and I left early. Unfortunately, the Cubs lost 4-3 to the Braves.
Friday was a trip to the Museum of Science & Industry. They have an exhibit currently called Brick By Brick which is a bunch of Lego models put together by a master builder. I'm a huge adult fan of Lego so this was a must see. In addition to the Lego exhibit, they had a German U-boat from WWII on display. It was quite impressive taking a tour of it. It was extremely cramped and the conditions that those sailors lived in was not pleasant. A couple of other cool things was a Tesla coil and a model train set of Chicago. I highly recommend the MSI if you are every in Chicago.
Model train set of Chicago
Lego Golden Gate Bridge
Lego International Space Station (aka Izzy according to Seveneves)
Lego Egyptian pyramds
German words are funny
U-boat
Tesla coil
Astrocow!
Weird bicycle called a Bicymple.
Friday consisted of dinner with my cousins at The Purple Pig which is my favorite restaurant in Chicago. I've randomly met strangers that have mentioned Purple Pig before. The food is incredible. It was the first time that I ever had oysters and first time I ever had bone marrow. Both were good. Saturday consisted of meeting up with a couple of friends for a street festival. The one thing I really liked about my 2nd trip to Chicago is seeing the neighborhoods. There are a lot of great neighborhoods around the city that have restaurants, bars, parks, and shopping centers. It creates a nice community feel and you don't have to travel far to enjoy things. I was told that there are lots of street festivals during the summer and my cousin said that there is at least 1 street festival within walking distance of his place during June, July, and August. After that, I met with my friend Shannon whom had tickets to the Sting+Peter Gabriel concert. The show was great because Sting and Peter Gabriel were on stage together for about 2 and a half hours. Sting would play a song, Peter Gabriel would play a song, and then they would collaborate. There was no opening act and it was truly a joint show between them. Some of the best parts were when Sting would play a PG song and then Gabriel would sing a Sting song. They had a total of 14 people on stage and the show was excellent. On the way out, we saw a literal clown car, too.
Shannon and I
Sunday was a more relaxed day with hanging out on my cousin's sailboat. We took it out on Lake Michigan for a quick ride. I can see how sailboats are nice because it was a nice, relaxing ride on the waters. A brewery trip on the ride home and then grilling up brauts and sausages at my cousin's place capped the weekend.
I left Chicago early on Monday and drove to Omaha, Nebraska. I had the time and I would likely never go to Omaha again so why not spend a day there? Downtown Omaha is kind of nice. There are old buildings with cobblestone streets with bars, restaurants, and shops. On Tuesday, it was a trip to the Omaha Zoo. This zoo and the San Diego Zoo go back and forth between being ranked the #1 zoo in the US. It was a good zoo. Some of the habits were very small though which is a bit depressing. For example, the bear habits were really small in my opinion and they had the polar bear in the 90* heat of Nebraska. The sea lion habit was small as well. Some of the habits were great though. I would recommend the zoo. Before getting back on the road, I had lunch at Orsi's Italian Bakery & Pizzeria. That is highly recommended for some authentic neighborhood Italian pizza.
Flamingos!
Lemur
Monitor lizard, I think
Construction worker in his natural habitat
Meercat
Peacock, aka the popcorn disposal serviceman
Tarantula, haha, made you look
Fish at Gene Leahy Mall in downtown Omaha
The greatest thing to see while walking around in the heat. I'm not going to admit how long I stood there.
The trip from Omaha to home was unexciting with more podcasts. I now know that once you are 80 miles from Denver, you can see the mountains again. Oh, the drive from Chicago to Omaha was a disaster because I couldn't time my bathroom breaks with gas stops and food. I think I took 7 stops in that 8 hour drive. On the 8 hour drive from Omaha to Denver, it was perfectly timed with getting food and going to the bathroom only when I stopped for gas.
Well, that was my 11 day road trip to Illinois and Wisconsin.
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