But there’s only so much pool awesomeness a girl can take before she must demand a Blog Adventure!

So we piled in the car and drove to a diner I’ve wanted to try.

Food was A-
Gross Floor under our table was F
So – overall, a C experience! If you’re ever in the Portage area, give it a try. Maybe they’ve cleaned the floor by now.

All in all, a perfect blog adventure.

The first was eating pizza at Gino’s East. I had never been – a strange anomaly in my life – but always wanted to go, especially after that one Amazing Race finale where the final task was to order and eat a pan pizza and then race to the finish line. Mr MIP and I ordered a small sausage, black olive and mushroom pan pizza and patiently waited the 45 minutes you always wait while waiting for the waiter to bring your waitful Chicago deep dish pizza.

Oh, yum. Crust is a little more like Lou Malnati’s and the sauce wasn’t quite as good as Giordano’s, in my opinion. But the quiet little booth with the graffiti left by hundreds of other diners, made the experience a great one. Definitely recommended!

Blurry, but I wanted you to see the graffiti covered walls:

And the other thing we accomplished from The List was to visit the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Free and beautiful – it’s definitely a place to check out. Not very large, but filled with beautiful plants and a fern room and orchid room (my fave) and tons of 1st graders, it’s located just north of the (also free!) Lincoln Park Zoo.

Oh, I love orchids. Don’t you?

There are lots of statues around the park, but only five were listed to get your picture by – so we ended up wandering a LOT around this park, looking for random author statues and asking the oldest zoo volunteers I could find where the statue of Eugene Field was. (The older ones know things. Don’t ever forget that.)

Here ya go -

Grant (did you know Grant and Lincoln are the only two who have a statue both in Lincoln and Grant Parks in Chicago? Makes sense, I guess.)

Shakespeare

Hans Christian Andersen

Eugene Field

Lincoln Himself

Standing by statues isn’t really my idea of fun, but it was fun to check off another thing on the list, and the walk itself around the park was beautiful. Take some time to visit Lincoln Park. You can take a long, nice walk. Visit the free zoo. Visit the free conservatory and have a picnic. Very nearby is the Chicago Historical Museum – which I haven’t visited, but have heard is great.

One from the 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland created by Roger: Get your picture taken by the Monument to Standing Beast.

It’s a rather strange looking monument, but here’s to Standing Beast! I even made sure to walk around inside the monument to get the full effect. The full effect included obvious signs of someone relieving himself in the monument, which just goes to show you, there’s more than one standing beast.

We also stopped in for coffee at Intelligentsia – a shop I’ve passed many times and always wanted to stop, but for one reason or another, we never did. This time? This time we walked about 400 miles out of our way to get there. But it was worth it when I ordered my medium mocha and the angst-ridden barista looked at me out of his horn-rimmed glasses and said, “Sarah?” (Not my real name. But I don’t give my real name at places where they yell out your name. It, for some reason, creeps me out that random people would know my name.) “Sarah? Here’s your mocha.” And, with a final flourish, he handed me one of the best mochas I’ve had. (Besides mine. Which I’m sipping right now. Which is perfect. But doesn’t have that extra dollop of angst-y intellect, so I’ve got to give it to Intelligentsia on that one!) If you want to visit – there’s one east of the train station on Jackson. And there’s one about a block west of the exit from the South Shore Line on Randolph.

But then I saw this…

And, yeah, this little number…what AM I doing?

Ooohhh….*Wince*

I’m such a letdown to the family…

I kinda felt bad when I noticed those pictures. Couldn’t I have behaved a little more grown-up? Mature? Door County-ish?

Nah. You know what? I think I did just fine.

P.S. And, yes, as a matter of fact, I did make them make a pit stop.

Since it was 2/3′s first time, we showed them all the typical stuff you just have to do when there. Like:

Climb Cana Island Lighthouse:

Take pictures by the shore of Cana Island:

Discover Mrs 1/3  – otherwise known as JC – takes great scenic photos just like Mr MIP does! Yay!

Meanwhile, I can sit and relax while Mr MIP and his travel buddy take pretty photos of every bloomin’ leaf on the island.

“Hm…I really could use a travel buddy.” thought MIP.

On from the lighthouse, we stopped by Gallery Ten in Gills Rock to view our friend’s photos which had been displayed all summer and fall. Here’s me and Mr JC checking out Jim’s photos and looking for the deeper meaning in it all. (Secret: There is no deeper meaning.) If you want to check out Jim’s awesome photography, check his site at Points of Light.

And, of course, take a picture of this famous swishy road. (Swishy?)

By then, we were starving and had to…just HAD to get some food.

Here are some of my favorite things about Our Road Trip:

1. Nobody called me the following: Mom, Mommy, MOMMMMMM, Oh, Mom, Mommmmmy!, Mom-What’s-For-Dinner?  (If they had, it would have been a bit…um, awkward?)

2. We ate. We ate Walleye. Bagels. Lemon Chicken. Ribs. Cherry Pie. Cherry Scone. Chicken Parmesan. Eggs, bacon and hash browns. Chips Ahoy. Grilled Pizza. Fried Cheese Curds. Food. More food.

A cheese curd alien!

3. 2/3 of our friends didn’t know my third spiritual gift (after Teaching and Being Funnier Than My Brother) is making Road Trip Mix CD’s. Oh, yeah, baby.

4. Learning people’s timelines. Isn’t it cool that we all have a story?

5. Taking pictures of every bloomin’ thing under the sun. That’s what happens when you travel with me AND Mr MIP. You can’t ever relax. Cuz you never know.

2. I introduced my gramma to her very first Starbucks ever. She’s from Cape Cod, and has held on to her accent. So Starbucks is “Stah-bucks.” (You should hear her order a Whopper at Burger King!)

3. We stopped at James Garfield’s house on the way home because my mother is trying to visit all the president’s houses. It actually turned out to be a very interesting stop – and the kids were entertained with great workbooks provided by the National Park Service. They had to do certain workbook things while taking the tour and then they earned a Junior Ranger badge. We had to get SuperBoy the Ranger hat. He wore it all the way home.

Ed. Note: My mom took the top two pictures and was the one that stopped and got us the Stah-bucks. That must be noted. (There’s only 70-ish days until Christmas. I’m on my best behavior!)

I am eternally grateful for my family. And I spent lots of time looking at pictures with Gramma and asking her and Grampa questions about their families. I’ve always enjoyed learning about people’s life stories – because I think if you understand history (good and/or bad), you can better look at life with a Big Picture View and it helps you realize how important it is to stay consistent with your choices and example to your children. Doesn’t make the cleaning and dusting anymore exciting – but it does give me encouragement. When I get to the end of my life, I want my testimony to be one my kids can look up to.And I have the utmost respect for people like my grandparents who have remained consistent and have provided such a testimony of God’s grace.