On the Road with Jan and George

Finally we find a moment to go over to Western Avenue for an authentic Rainbow Cone, complete with orange sherbet, pistachio, Palmer House (Venetian vanilla with cherries & walnuts), strawberry and chocolate.  NYDQ!  That is: “Not your Dairy Queen”.

Rainbow Cone!!!

We also stop at S&T Provisions down on 111^th for a jar of their hot giardinera.  Rozzie always brought a jar or two when he came to winter with us, and that’s what originally got George started as a devoted flannel-mouth.  He’s looking forward to growing Habanero peppers again when we get back home.  And it seems that an even hotter pepper has recently been developed, the Ghost Pepper, Tom Starr showed us the plants he was growing at their Clear Lake house…there are always new frontiers!

Nancy comes to say goodbye over lunch of Italian Beef sandwiches, knocking another Chicago specialty off our bucket list.  We’ll really need a day of grains and greens pretty soon.

Before we bid goodbye to Evergreen Park and all our family and friends, Lynn brings out a pair of sock bunnies that Jan had made for baby Lynn and baby Richard (a few years ago).  And John demonstrates his wicked double-whammy fly killer – “Foolproof”, he assures us.

Lynn with Sock Bunnies..........................................& "The Fly Murderer"

Rare moment of relaxation for Lynn..................................with her Clematis.

In the afternoon we drive down to Orland Park to visit Jan’s cousin Tom and his wife Patte, we tour their antique filled home, meet their two dogs, and they take us for a lovely dinner at a nearby restaurant/winery, Cooper’s Hawk.

Jan, Tom and Patte.

The wine casks are off at the left, and those are aerators on the right.  For a couple of their wines on any given day, they’ll serve you straight out of one of the casks that they’ve tapped.

This get-together provides a perfect opportunity to share Rozzie stories.  Tom’s dad Russ was the oldest of ten children, five boys and five girls, Jan’s dad Rozzie was the second of the brood.  Rozzie often told us that he used to get in trouble because of stuff that Russ did – no one would believe that Russ would do such things, “It must have been Roz”, so he was the one who got punished.  But Tom says, “Funny thing, my dad always told me he used to get into trouble because of things that Rozzie did.”  The Ombudsman’s touchstone: “Two people, three versions of events.”

Being retired, on vacation, or whatever it is we are, we seem to find it harder to get up at the crack of dawn these days.   But today we get a fairly early start and drive up to Millennium Park with Maria and the gang.

Maria, Ray, Lynn, Jan and Brianna in front of the Art Institute...and the fountain in Millennium Park.

The park is sited on a former bleak rail yard.   With its beautiful gardens and sculptures, and on a warm sunny day like today it fills with families and tourists from all over.  Quite a welcome improvement!

One of the most striking attractions of the park is a huge mirrored sculpture which everyone calls “The Bean” (it seems that it’s actually named “Cloud Gate”).

The Bean.

Self-portrait plus family.

Salvia. ........................................................................... "It's OK, I work here.

"Is that a UFO?" ............................................................. And Brianna in a fountain.

That evening, back in EP, we all go out for Pizza at Barraco’s (we’re beginning to feel like regulars).

We’re off to Michigan for the day, a couple of hours’ drive to Clear Lake to see Nancy & Doc in their lakeshore cottage.  The road there seems to be the main drag for Adult Bookstores (no windows) and “Buy One Get Three Free” fireworks stores…odd combination?

Doc shows us around in his Cadillac of pontoon boats.

Nancy and Doc’s two sons and daughters-in-law and five grandchildren between five years and eight months are staying with them, a cozy family gathering of eleven – we aren’t offended when they’re reluctant to invite us to stay the night.

Melissa (Don's wife) with Sara, and Kristin (Dan's wife) with Abbie.

Tom & Gail have their own place about a mile away on the same lake, Doc takes us to visit them in his pontoon boat.  Kathy and Steve Hester have joined them for the weekend

Tom, Kathy, Jan, Doc, Nancy, Gail & Steve.

Kathy was Jan’s first new friend when she made the transition from Lutheran grade school to public junior high, and she and Steve are part of the close-knit group of friends that Jan always joins up with when she comes back to EP.  For many years they would put on a full-court press every time Jan came to visit: “So, are you done with the California thing yet?  When are you moving back home?”  They seem to have come to realize that Jan is a hopeless case, and the pressure’s been off.

Clear Lake townie.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

A huge storm blows in, spectacular thunder and lightning, the wind pushing the swing in the front yard to almost perfect horizontal.  For some strange reason George finds it the perfect time for a long nap!  Then the power flickers for a while and finally goes out altogether, the neighbor’s pontoon boat is unmoored by the wind and on the loose, and we eat our tasty dinner of barbecued brats by candlelight.  The storm is over by the time we head back home, but we hear later that the power was out for twenty four hours.

Bad storms make good sunsets

We’re off to the Subaru dealership at the crack of dawn, the dash lights are all off again and it turns out all the car needs is its normal 3000 mile service – but the synthetic oil it requires makes it more expensive than “normal”!  It seems the stalling and the business with the dash lights was probably due to some radio-frequency interference which triggered the “lock-down” signal – this would normally happen if the wrong key was used or if there was some other evidence of mischief.  It’s a bit disconcerting to know that some random radio signal could shut our car down completely – we were lucky that it changed its mind.

That afternoon we drive up to the Andersonville neighborhood on the North Side to visit Carol & Jessie, and meet Tom the Lab mix, a very long black dog who’s the newest addition to the household.

Jess, Carol & Tom on the porch of their gorgeous Northside home.

Carol Anshaw and Jan have been friends since their time together at Michigan State, they can’t be in each other’s company without laughing (there seems to be a pattern here). There are a lot of shops and restaurants in their neighborhood – almost like a real city 😉 -and they take us to a yummy dinner nearby. Carol’s an author (her fourth novel is being published), a teacher, and more recently has been developing her considerable talents as an artist.

Tom says Hi!

The next morning we say goodbye to Carol & Jess and head back to Evergreen Park, in time to attend Brianna’s swim lesson at the high school.  Right across the street from the high school is the house in which Jan spent a large part of her childhood, she goes over and knocks on the door , it’s answered by the present owner Mike Brennan who invites us in and shows us around.

Jan at 10000 South Sawyer.

Jan’s dad built this house in 1947 with her grandfather, who was a journeyman bricklayer, and various uncles.  She lived there until 1959 when they built and moved into another house in EP a couple of miles away.  Naturally this house was right next to the high school that Jan would begin attending in 1960, and the new house was right near the junior high she attended until that year.   Jan’s shoe leather was obviously not a high priority at the time.

We stop by to see Nancy and Doc Wallace at their home in Oak Lawn right next door to EP.  Nancy and Jan have been closest friends since they were born (probably before),  we had flown here last November for  a wonderful surprise 40^th wedding anniversary party that their kids had organized.  Nancy and Doc were completely taken in!

Jan and Nancy...laughing as always!

As a special treat, another of the old gang, Gail Starr, drops by, followed shortly later by her daughter Megan and ten-month old grandson Finn.

Finn & Meggie.

Whenever we have any spare time on a visit to EP we make a beeline for the Field Museum of Natural History up in the city, so that’s where we head the next day.  In the parking lot, George stalls the car maneuvering into a spot – not so shocking, he hasn’t driven a manual shift car in a few years.  But the car won’t start again for ten or fifteen seconds…then it starts up and all seems well (but see later).

Everyone's a Bull's fan

In the museum Jan gets reacquainted with a few of her old friends, and we meet some new ones wearing Chicago Bulls uniforms.

It wouldn’t be a trip to Chicago without a Chicago dog, which we buy at a cart in the parking lot.  Meanwhile it’s the last week in May, it’s 40 degrees and we’re freezing!  But on the drive home we notice something disturbing, a bunch of trouble lights are lit up on the Subaru’s dashboard  and they won’t go off.  So Jan uses her ability to surf the web with her new toy, she finds the nearest Subaru dealership and makes an appointment for early the next morning.

Then for dinner we meet another high school friend of Jan’s, Ken Jorgensen, and his girlfriend Cindy, at Barraco’s Pizza, just minutes away from Maria’s.

Cindy, Ken & Jan

Jan was fortuitously re-connected with Ken through a mutual friend on Facebook after many years with no contact, we saw him on our visit here last November and are glad to be back in touch.

By a lovely coincidence, Elizabeth and Jen (co-owners of Liddabit Sweets) are on a 48-hour visit to Chicago for the Snacks and Sweets convention at the McCormick Center, and we get to meet them for dinner at Moto in the Fulton Market district.

With Elizabeth & Jen at Moto

It’s a neighborhood of warehouses in the process of gentrification, and the restaurant features very high concept molecular cuisine, interesting and fun.  It’s as much entertainment as it is a culinary experience, fake mushrooms made from mushrooms, a freeze-dried mango “packing peanut” dipped in liquid nitrogen served with ginger beer that makes smoke come out your nose….lots of fun!

So after our visit-to-Amana adventure we got back on the road with our mud-free car (sorry, Maile), and crossed the Mississippi and all of Illinois.  We arrived in Evergreen Park (which borders Chicago’s south side) in the evening, and had a late-ish dinner with Jan’s sister-in-law Maria, her daughter Lynn, and Lynn’s two kids, 15-year-old Johnny (he’s now six foot one and is usually addressed as “John”), and 11-year old Brianna.  Lynn’s brother Ray joined us when he got off work (he’s a Master Sergeant in the active Army Reserves), his house is right across the street, which is where we stayed during our time in Evergreen.

Maria & Jan, Ray

John (aka "Mr. Wheelie"), Brianna & Lyn

Our last morning in Iowa City, Maile drives us to to visit the Amana Colonies before we head off toward Chicago.  There are unpleasant construction delays on the roads, and George checks his Android phone’s GPS (a new toy) and announces “There’s a way around this…”.  So Maile turns off onto a smaller paved road, which becomes a gravel road after a couple of miles.  No problem.  Then we pass a farmhouse and a sign says, “Grade B Road, Not Maintained, Pass at Your Own Risk”.  We’re thinking, “How bad can a dirt road be?”  Well, 45 minutes later with the help of a lot of shrubbery pulled out of the woods and a great deal of sweating and elbow grease, we manage to push, pull and drag Maile’s Lexus out of where it had gotten stuck in axle-deep mud, and Maile heroically drives us through the last half-mile of nasty, slippery muck.  It’s a measure of how stressed out we all are that George never even thinks to take a photo during the whole process.  If you ever see a sign that says “Grade B Road”, turn around and get out of there as fast as you can.

Maile's beautiful Lexus after the "Grade B Road".

But our visit to Amana was great, we watched their automated looms weaving beautiful things (we bought one cotton blanket for Minnesota), and admired their gorgeous chairs, tables, cabinet work, clocks, and good food and drink.  And we drove back to Maile’s place the long way.

Maile hosed the mud off of us before we got back on the road for Evergreen Park, and we’ve heard from her since that her Lexus suffered no permanent damage.

So now we were down to just the three of us, and Maile drove Jan and me to the MacBride Raptor Center which is operated by the U of I. They’ve got quite a collection of birds which they care for, most of which were brought to them following injury, some of which were chicks who have imprinted on humans and cannot be released into the wild.

MacBride Raptor Center- Barred Owl, Kestrel, Great Horned Owl, and...well, you know.

It’s on the grounds of a beautiful recreation area with facilities for hiking, camping and water sports.   And the region’s very rich in fossils which are regularly uncovered by the flowing and flooding water.

Lake MacBride and some of its ancient aquafauna.

That afternoon we were off to the town of West Branch about 30 minutes to the  east, home of the Hoover Presidential Library and Birthplace–we came away quite impressed with Hoover and his life, whom we had known little about other than that he had the extremely bad luck to be inaugurated a few months before the stock market crash of 1929.

Herbert Hoover's two-room birthplace.

About an hour before closing a tornado alert was announced, and they herded all of  us visitors into in an inner corridor of the museum, windowless and chairless, for half an hour.  It was the same storm that generated the tornado that devastated Joplin MO, but nothing touched down near us.

We got back to Maile’s place and enjoyed our last evening and sunset together.

Iowa City Sunset from Maile's living room