Category Archives: travel

gettin’ the heck out of dodge

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Chicago 2024: Part One

  • Admiring the view
  • Marina City
  • Sunday Dinner at Giordano’s
  • View from Room 1410
  • On The Big Bus Tour
  • Chicago Hot Dogs = No Ketchup!
  • Photoception Part One
  • Photoception Part Two
  • View from the Willis Tower
  • Another view from the Willis Tower
  • Heading to The Ledge
  • Ledge Selfie
  • Our feet as seen by me
  • Our feet as seen by Aaron
  • Taking Connor’s picture on The Ledge
  • Connor on The Ledge
  • Monday Lunch at Luke’s Italian Beef
  • Pikachu at Luke’s Italian Beef
  • Family selfie at Navy Pier
  • The guys at Navy Pier
  • Walking in downtown Chicago
  • TIME
  • No skateboarding?
  • Stickered-up sign
  • Record shopping at Reckless Records on The Loop
  • Bitch, please.
  • WTF happened in the back issues?!
  • Millennium Park was closed for renovations
  • Walking up Michigan Avenue
  • Connor at the Apple Store
  • Welcome back to another gaming video…
  • Dinner on Sunday: Shang Noodle
  • Pork buns at Shang Noodle
  • Mapo tofu at Shang Noodle
  • Family selfie outside Shang Noodle
  • Dessert at Ghirardelli
  • Dessert at Ghirardelli
  • Connor’s Cookie Crumble at Ghirardelli

We went on our first city vacation as a family this year, and we managed to get Connor sold on the idea of city vacations being a thing in the future.

For Connor’s first foray into the world of freeform roll-your-own city vacationing, we spent three nights in Chicago. Aaron and I hadn’t been to Chicago since our first visit some 14 years ago, and that was a couple years before Connor came on the scene. This time around, our only real agenda items were 1.) taking a hop-on, hop-off bus tour, 2.) eating at Ann Sather’s again, and 3.) trying Italian beef, all of which we successfully crossed off the list.

The gallery above features highlights from our arrival on Sunday, including deep dish Chicago pizza at Giordano’s; and our initial explorations on Monday, including our Big Bus Tour, a trip up the Willis (Sears) Tower, lunch at Luke’s Italian Beef, a brief (cold and windy) stop at Navy Pier, an afternoon shopping excursion, warming up inside the Apple Store, dinner at Shang Noodle, and dessert at Ghirardelli.

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Spring Break Staycation

The highlight of last month’s spring break staycation was taking a daytrip to Ann Arbor! Thrifting, gaming, shopping, and eating. And walking.

Our first stop was Salvation Army, on our way into town. Connor found a telescope for cheap — all it needs is a bolt and locking washer for one of the tripod legs.

Our next stop was Pinball Pete’s. Connor had never been to an honest-to-goodness arcade before (Chuck E. Cheese doesn’t count). All the machines still take actual money, not tokens or cards, which was refreshing.

Luckily, there’s no visual documentation of me playing DDR Extreme — although it was OMG SO FUN and took me back to my college days, I really don’t need to see what I looked like jumping around to my favorite DDR song. I assure you, I looked nothing like this guy.

After an hour or so at Pinball Pete’s, we walked across the Diag to the other side of campus, for virtually everything else we wanted to do.

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Concert in the Park

Even though I played with the Litchfield Town Band briefly during the mid-90’s, I was still surprised to witness the pride of this little town in their concert band. All summer, on Friday evenings, the town band assembles in the gazebo to play marches and polkas and other traditional crowd favorites.

When my son and I went to visit my Mom at the end of July, a good number of her friends were looking forward to pulling out some chairs and listening to the music. Having been a music major in a former life, I could tell that it wasn’t exactly professional-sounding, but it wasn’t totally cringey, either. It was enjoyable in that live-music-outside sort of way.

Except to one nine-year-old boy who’d already had a long day. To him, it was “boring,” and he just wanted to go back to Grammy’s house and relax.