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I visited the Art Institute of Chicago today – alone as Ooma was feeling unwell. It was my second visit, the first one being when I was in high school, so it was at least 55 years ago. I didn’t remember the building or the location, but I remembered some of the art.
Getting there was surprisingly easy. Our hotel was in Lombard which put us between 40 and 90 minutes away, depending on traffic. I waited until midday so I got the 40-minute end of the spectrum. I was also unsure that parking would be available, but I found the Grant Park South underground garage to be only about 75% full. I was surprised, when I ascended to ground level in the elevator, to be just a half block from the museum. Easy peasy.
This museum has a wide variety of very valuable art of all kinds, but I was primarily interested in the impressionist and American paintings. They have all the greats in those categories – van Gogh, Renoir, Gauguin, Monet, Seurat, Cezanne, Pissarro, Cassatt. Degas, Kandinsky, Klee, Picasso, Dali, O’Keefe, Mondrian, Sargent, Homer, Whistler, Hopper, Warhol. Every room has something that is familiar.
I also got to see downtown Chicago for the first time in many years. It looked clean and shiny – shinier than Manhattan. I drove around a bit but couldn’t stop to take photos. Still, a good trip into downtown Chicago.
The Chicago skylineMichigan AvenueThrough a screen at the museumThe lion at the entrance
126 miles via US 12, IL 53, I-290 and I-355 with a lunch stop at Nora’s Cafe in Elkhorn WI. Cumulative TS8 route miles: 1313. Cumulative TS8 car miles: 1516. Car miles since the end of Hop 4: 267. The extra 141 miles were due to all the various activities we had during our week in Madison.
This was, technically, an easy hop. Just 2.5 hours. But we couldn’t check into our Lombard hotel until after 2 and we left at 10:30am, so we had time to kill. Because we had the time and because I hate the tolls on the I-90 tollway into Chicago, I decided to travel US 12. This is, mostly, a pretty decent road and lightly traveled until it gets into IL. And it adds only about 30 minutes to the travel time compared to I-90. But Ooma hates two-lane roads and reminded me of that fact repeatedly. We took a break for a nice breakfast/lunch in Elkhorn WI and another brief stop at a Target in IL to get bananas and a new water bottle for Ooma so we had a few strategic breaks along the way and didn’t strangle each other.
Our home in Madison was the Sleep Inn & Suites. The hotel was clean, the bed was comfortable and the cable TV lineup was quite good. But the breakfasts were a huge disappointment. The only hot item was waffles, which we don’t much care for. We went out to breakfast several times.
We spent a full week in Madison WI. The main events were the 55th high school reunion (with golf outing) and two trips to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. But we did some other things, too. And ate a lot of food. Other activities worthy of note:
Junko and Ben at Grampa’s
Inside Toby’s
Pizza at Grampa’s Pizzeria with long-time friends Ben and Junko. Good pizza, but not great. Very thin crust – almost like a flatbread pizza.
Dinner at Graze with Ben and Junko. The menu is npuveau (e.g. Korean braised pork belly). I thought it was good but Ooma was unimpressed. But the restaurant was right on The Square (around the Wisconsin state capitol) and I got some interesting capitol photos.
Sunday watching the Green Bay Packers vs Minnesota Vikings with Ben and another high school friend. The Packers lost. Sad.
Dinner for just Ooma and I at Toby’s Supper Club. This was a small restaurant near our hotel that got good reviews, so we gave it a shot. It is a dive, but the food is terrific. Ooma had a T-bone which she said was the best steak she has had in years. I had the pan-fried chicken. Also exceptionally good.
Drinks at the Echo Tap with a bunch of old high school friends. A good selection of draft beers and outstanding onion rings and fried cheese curds. But we were told that the food was mediocre, so we did take-out from Salvatore’s Tomato Pies. Very good.
Three views of the Wisconsin capitol building
What we didn’t do was visit Circus World in Baraboo, as originally planned (poor weather).
This is the first of the 11 books by Harlan Coben featuring Myron Bolitar, sports agent and investigator. I have read one other Myron Bolitar book – One False Move – and wasn’t impressed. But I saw this one in the bookstore in South Carolina and thought I would give the first in the series a try. I don’t regret that decision.
In this one Bolitar is just getting started in his career as sports agent after his basketball career was cut short by injury. He has a major new client, Christian Steele, the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft. He negotiates a great contract for Christian, but is sidetracked by a mystery surrounding the disappearance of Christian’s girlfriend when he was a senior in college. The girlfriend is the sister of Jessica, Myron’s ex-girlfriend. Everyone assumed that the sister, Kathy, was dead. But then her photo appears in a sleazy magazine, in an ad for a phone sex company. Is she a victim of white slavery? And is her disappearance connected to the murder of her father?
The search for Kathy and unraveling the twin myteries of her disappearance and her father’s murder (and. eventually, the murder of Kathy’s best friend) fully consume Myron and Jessica. He has to navigate threats from some underworld thugs who want to control one of Myron’s other clients, but that is just filler and an opportunity for Win – Windsor Home Lockwood III, Myron’s best friend and bodyguard – to crack some heads.
The mysteries are deep and Coben unravels them gently, with good pacing. Overall a very satisfying book.
After discussing our plan for getting from Madison WI back to Ft Myers – a plan that featured stops in Asheville NC and Savannah GA – and looking at the prices for Biltmore ($79 each, or more), we decided to change the route to include a stop to see Ooma’s sister near Mobile AL. So the revised TS8-2 itinerary is as follows:
Chicago IL (or a western suburb thereof): a 2-night stay which gives us one full day to visit the city (which Ooma has never visited). That day will be devoted to the Chicago Institute of Art. We also hope to catch some music at a blues club, but that will depend on Ooma’s health.
St Louis MO: 2 nights where the main event will be a visit to the St Louis Zoo.
Tupelo MS: 2 nights. We don’t have any firm plans yet, but this is where Elvis was born.
Daphne AL: 2 nights. We will visit with Ooma’s sister.
Lake City FL: one night. This is just an overnight stop but we might take a slight detour on our way home to visit the Florida Southern University which has many buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Fort Myers FL. Home at last. Collect Rusty (and see if he remembers me), put our feet up and rest.
1,676 miles in 6 hops. There will be some very long travel days.
The weather in Madison on Sunday and Monday was, in a word, dreadful – heavy rains and highs in the 50s. Ooma says she can’t understand why anyone would live in Madison. And she hasn’t seen winter.
But before the cold and rain descended on us we made an outing to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. This is a large, varied and very impressive garden on the shores of Lake Monona. Ooma, who is a master gardener, was very impressed. It was a lovely day for a walk in the gardens. We didn’t do the inside portion of the gardens – a huge, pyramidical greenhouse – and only stayed a bit over an hour as Ooma tires easily, but we got some lovely photos.
We might get back to see the greenhouse, but time is running short now. But we have a short trip on Wednesday – just 2.5 hours to Chicago – so maybe we can stop by on our way out of town. Not likely, but I have never been inside and am curious what is in there. That structure did not exist 60 years ago when I would visit the gardens while riding my bike.
Reflection poolA riot of coleusSmall waterfallPretty flowersHuge hibiscusJapanese walk
UPDATE: We returned to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens on Tuesday and toured both the conservatory (i.e., the glass pyramid) and the Thai Garden, which we skipped on the first visit. I took over 50 photos, a few of which I include here.
Yes, I am 73 and graduated high school 55 years ago. The TS8 detour to Wisconsin on our way back to Florida was due, primarily, to a desire to attend the reunion. It turned out to be a pleasant and relatively lively event (as lively as an event involving septuagenarians can be). Good food, good conversation. Most of my old (literally) classmates looked pretty good. But the board showing all the classmates who have died (about 60 of the 350) was sobering. You can’t look at that without wondering “is this my last reunion?”
The main event was Saturday evening. Before the event I played 18 holes of golf. I did poorly, as expected, but did get one birdie, which was very much unexpected. I don’t think I have had a birdie in over 5 years. I had to sink a 50-foot putt to accomplish the feat. But my golfmates – George and Bob – ended up getting a birdie each, so it was birdies all around. That left a glow and some sore muscles which made me walk like an 80-year-old at the reunion. I am still a bit sore 3 days later. Ooma says that is a sign that I am out of shape. Hmmm.. she might have a point.
329 miles via I-90, I-290 (west and northwest of Chicago), US 14, and I-90 again with a lunch stop in Palatine IL and a shopping trip (Old Navy and a food store) before we arrived at our hotel. Cumulative TS8 miles: 1187. Cumulative car miles: 1249. Miles since the end of Hop 3: 333. The 4 extra car miles were due to dinner out in Fremont IN.
The Indiana Turnpike was kinder to me than the Ohio Turnpike, so I used it all the way across Indiana. The toll was only $8.90 which seemed reasonable compared to Ohio. Illinois got me for over $17, though. It was an expensive tolls day. And that isn’t counting the unknown tolls that I racked up by using I-90 from Palatine to Wisconsin. It wasn’t my first choice to take this route, but Ooma wanted the fastest route. I will await the bill in the mail.
The shopping stops before the hotel in Madison were to get some long-sleeve tops for Ooma. Apparently I had assured her that Wisonsin would be sweltering in September. I don’t recall doing that, but I am old and I forget things. We also needed some food for our 1-week stay in Madison.
Our hotel in Fremont IN was the Comfort Inn. Not the best hotel I have ever seen, but perfectly adequate for one night. Dinner was at Clay’s, a restaurant too small to have a website. Like the hotel, it was adequate.
326 miles via I-90, I-471 (around Cleveland), I-71, I-80, OH 53, OH 2, OH 579, I-280, I-75, I-475, US 20, US 127 and Territorial Rd (which became IN 120 when it crossed into Indiana), with refueling and lunch stops. Cumulative TS8 route miles: 851. Cumulative car miles: 907. Miles since the end of Hop 2: 333. The few extra miles were due to my wine cellar visit.
TS8 Hop 3
This hop was every bit as difficult as it sounds, given the long list of roads traveled. This was not my original plan. My first mistake was entering the wrong address for my destination in my GPS – the Comfort Inn in Fremont OH instead of Fremont IN. I did not realize my mistake until I got onto the Ohio Turnpike, which was a near-disaster: the EZ Pass lane had a gate – the first gate I had ever encountered in hundreds of EZ Pass tolls. I nearly took it off when it came down in front of me – landing on my windshield. But no damage.
When I got off, to find some lunch, the EZ Pass did not work at all. I had to back up (fortunately there was little traffic) and go to a booth with an attendant. Where I learned that the MA EZ Pass transponder does not work on the Ohio Turnpike! I didn’t have a ticket either, so I had to negotiate with the attendant what my toll would be. A very frustrating, annoying and thoroughly unpleasant experience. I resolved to not re-enter the turnpike after lunch, so I got to the destination via Toledo and a little piece of Michigan. Ooma hated it though it was only about 20 minutes longer than the turnpike route.
Our home for three nights in North East PA was the Holiday Inn Express & Suites. We would have preferred a 2-night stay, but it was Labor Day weekend and we really didn’t want to be on the road on Labor Day, so we opted for the extra day. We are glad we did.
This is a very clean hotel with a beautiful indoor pool with water slides which young children would love (and about 100 of them were loving it when we arrived). There is also a second, smaller pool for people who would like to avoid the pandemonium of the big pool.
Overall, a very nice hotel. The bed was comfortable, the bathroom was large, the cable TV had about 50 channels and there was a one-cup Keurig coffeemaker in the room. The WiFi was adequate.
We met up the night we arrived with Jimmy and Michelle, two long-term friends of Ooma’s. They are much younger (they refer to Kate as “grandmother”). They gave us a tour of Erie PA and environs, including Presque Isle State Park, a lovely park on a peninsula jutting out into Lake Erie. I got some nice sunset photos before we stopped for a hot dog dinner at Sara’s, a seasonal Erie favorite outdoor dining spot. We were also impressed by the 20-or-so houseboats that anchor there. It looks like a very cool place to hang out in the summer.
HouseboatSara’sLake Erie sunset
On Saturday we were on our own. Ooma cooled her heels most of the day but I went out to sample some local wines. We had no idea, before we arrived, that North East PA is a major grape-growing and wine-producing region. I went first to Driftwood Wine Cellars, tasted 4 red wines (2 local, 2 imported from Chile) and purchased a bottle of Black Widow(er), a smoky, full-bodied wine that will be excellent with cheese. Then I crossed the street to Yori Wine Cellars to taste 4 more reds. They, too, had a very interesting smoky one, but I opted for the Chambourcin which will be a fine dinner wine. I was very impressed with the quality of wines produced in this area.
For dinner we walked about 70 feet to the New Harvest Restaurant and Pub. It didn’t look very appealing, but it was convenient. We weren’t impressed when we walked in, either – your basic low-rent pub. The server started off by apologizing that the kitchen was behind and it would be at least 30 minutes to get our entree. But we ordered drinks – excellent – and then ordered dinner – broiled walleye for me (a first!) and liver and onions for Ooma. They were delivered in about 15 minutes and they were both excellent. So our first impressions were wrong – this is a very fine dining establishment.
Liver and onionsBroiled walleye
On Monday (a dreary, cool Labor Day) we met up with Jimmy and Michelle again. We thought we were going for drinks and appetizers at the Skunk and Goat Tavern, but it was closed. And so were the next 10 places we called. We finally landed at the U Pick 6 Public House. Then we drove to the Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner. Jimmy and Michelle had celebrated their 5th anniversary on Sunday (Ooma had been at their wedding) so we treated them to dinner. Ooma and I shared a ribeye steak. Delicious.
We had the desk clerk take a commemorative photo before we parted company. They are a lovely couple who helped make it a very good weekend.
