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P's parents have been visiting this past week. We have traveled all over the Midwest and still have more ground to cover. Last weekend featured an architecture cruise in Chicago; a walk from North Michigan Avenue down through Millennium Park, Grant Park, Buckingham Fountain, and ending at the Museum Campus; lots of Chicago food and shopping; a Cubs win over the Pirates at Wrigley; and a visit to IMSI.
We took a break on Monday just making applesauce and hanging around the B-N where we introduced P's parents to fried cheese curds--a Midwest delicacy. We then went shopping in Tuscola, Illinois on Tuesday and ate a fabulous dinner at M's.
After the restful Monday-Tuesday combo, we drove down to St. Louis on Wednesday afternoon where we got a Red Robin fix and made our first ever visit to Busch Stadium to watch the Cardinals overtake Man-Ram and the Dodgers--an outstanding ballpark and an exciting game with a Grand Slam by Pujols, and home runs from Man-Ram and Ludwick. Since it was a night game we didn't get to leave St. Louis until 9:45ish and finally arrived home around 12:30. We slept in on Thursday before P and the parents headed out for Galena, IL--on the borders of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
During the Galena visit, we stopped by UW Madison (1.5 hours from Galena) and paid our dues to Iowa as well. Perhaps the highlight of this trip was watching P's mom sled down the alpine slides in Galena (yes, there is skiing in the 'Nois!). She was afraid to go too fast so she held the brakes the entire trip down the 750 slide from the top of Chestnut Mountain to the Mississippi River. Needless to say, the poor kids who got stuck behind her had completely caught up with her little sled and P and Shugs waited and waited....and waited at the bottom.
Northern Illinois (and the surrounding region) is very different from life in Normal as there are lots of rolling hills, dairies (though Shugs was very concerned about where the cows were), and rivers--no worries though, the corn and soy fields reminded us that we were indeed still in the Midwest and kept P from getting homesick for Normal.
We are now all back in the B-N and plan to attend the Illinois State Fair down in Springfield tomorrow before heading back up to Chicago for some pre-flight shopping on Monday.
Then, it's back to school....back to school....
--for more pics, check out our Picassa Page: http://picasaweb.google.com/JensenKP/ChicagoAndGalena2008
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