Archive for August, 2009
When TW said she wanted to go to the Valley Lodge in Glenview for her birthday dinner, I was a little confused.
It’s just down the street from us and it looks like a bar/steakhouse combo. It’s often crowded, from the looks of the parking lot, and it just didn’t seem like her thing.
Apparently it was her thing primarily because it is celebrating it’s 40th birthday this year, too.
So, TW and the kids and I went to the Valley Lodge shortly before 7pm on the 29th. When we arrived we discovered it is not wheelchair accessible (good thing TW’s mom decided not to go with us) and that it was jam packed with people. And also loud. The children would also say that it was full of old people, which is relatively true.
The server said 20 minute wait, so we stood on the stairs and waited. And waited. And waited. And even when a table for five opened, still we waited because maybe that one was reserved? Or something. We waited for more than a half hour, closer to 40 minutes. By the time we were seated, we were starving and also a little grouchy.
The bread they brought to the table was fabulous, which went a long way toward making us not grouchy. (The dark bread in particular I highly recommend.)
We ordered two flaming cheeses and those also went a long way toward making us not grouchy.
The real food arrived just as we had finished the flaming cheeses and I believe we all agreed that the food was pretty darn good. Everything from Liz’s mac & cheese to my sloppy joe to RJ’s gyro sub. Excellent.
It was a pricey meal but we were stuffed and happy by the time we left. All in all, excellent birthday choice – except for that whole 40 minute wait thing.
When Jenn and Teddy were here, we spent a day at the Navy Pier. One of the things I wanted to make sure we saw was The Crystal Gardens.
I couldn’t figure out how we missed seeing them when we were in Chicago for BlogHer ’07, since they are right across from the entrance to the Children’s Museum where we spent a considerable amount of time.
But we did miss them and that’s too bad… I wonder what it looks like in there at night… is it open at night? I should find out and we should go back.
The gardens themselves are interesting enough. The spitting fountains were amusing. The glass ceiling with the huge fans was pretty interesting. The views were as awesome as you’d expect.
We’ve visited a lot of Farmers Markets since moving to Chicagoland and our favorite is still the Skokie Farmers Market.
It isn’t as big as Evanston’s. And it’s not as good for people watching as Deerfield’s. It isn’t as close as Glenview’s or even Northbrook’s. It’s not as ‘interesting’ as Wilmette’s French Market.
It’s just a basic, small, Farmers Market. Open on Sundays (which might be part of why we like it…)
Last Sunday, it was a little disconcerting though. Some of the vendors were set up in the “wrong” spots! That totally threw us off. Vendors should set up in the same place every time, darn it.
We’ve been looking at the Sugar Bowl, in Des Plaines for ages. Wishing it was open, wishing we had been able to visit it back in its hey day. And then, it happened. We saw signs appear in the window indicating it was going to re-open. And it did.
We went to the Sugar Bowl today, for a brunch.
I ordered a California Omelet that was HUGE. It came with home fries and pancakes. Home fries were fine, not bad – not good, just fine. The rest of the meal was excellent. (And the waitress kept refilling our coffee, which I appreciated.
TW’s mom ordered the mixed berry french toast. Huge serving and she said it was good. It looked good.
TW ordered the Reuben Club and again, talk about serving size. Monster. I nicked a fry and it wasn’t bad, wasn’t bad at all. With a little more salt and pepper it might have been excellent. TW says the Reuben club was fabulous. And it looked good. I am tempted to order a Reuben on my next trip (not the club because I don’t do bacon.)
Loved the Sugar Bowl. Enjoyed every second of our visit. We’ll go back, definitely.
Very soon after moving to Chicagoland, we found ourselves a wee bit lost in that we’re not lost but we don’t know exactly where we are sort of way. I think it might have been right after we dropped the u-Haul off and we were headed home. Or headed home via some cicuitous route that would lead us to find some place new and interesting, something to eat and also provide us with excuses to not be at home unpacking boxes in a house we didn’t want to live in.
Whatever. We were driving around and instead of heading toward Cook County, we headed toward Lake County and found ourselves in Northbrook right on the edge of Deerfield. I remember seeing a sign for Nickel City and thinking a) arcade? b) some discount kind of shopping place? c) something else entirely? and not thinking about it again.
Shortly after, in some junk mail circular or junk coupon mailing, we discovered Nickel City was in fact an arcade. Every week there’s some new coupon for Nickel City savings and I’ve mostly ignored it.
Last month I actually visited the website to see if it might be worth checking out rather than ignoring. It seemed to be, worth checking out, I mean.
Arcade games that use nickels and not stupid tokens.
$2 admission fee per person.
Ticket games.
FREE old arcade games.
It sounded too good to be true so I didn’t take any real initiative and plan an adventure. TW, on the otherhand, decided this would be a fun outing for Liz’s birthday. So… we went.
I forgot the coupon at home, which was stupid but whatever it was still cheap. It wasn’t crowded AT ALL. The games did in fact take nickels and there were really free arcade games available. Lots of them. Pac-Man and Miss Pac-Man, even.
The games cost anywhere from one nickel to six. We each had a $5 bag of nickels and a couple dollars of nickels that I grabbed from our change bag. I didn’t use most of mine and gave them to the girls, who both ran out of nickels at just about the same time. TW also ran out of nickels and put another dollar or two into the machine to grab some more (because she couldn’t find me, which was weird but possible in that TW can’t find anyone sort of way.)
We all had a good time, playing games. The girls got more tickets than they’ve ever gotten before from an arcade experience and were pleased with the prizes they cashed them in for.
We spent right at $20 for four of us to spend about two hours playing all the games we could possibly play.
Nickel City = WIN.
The first time TW and I were shocked by the site of the Baha’i Temple was when we were here house hunting, in April ’08. I say shocked because there are a lot of Chicago travel guides that will tell you stuff like…
don’t run off the road when you see it… you come around the corner and there it is… and there’s a shock factor….
It’s true. You know it’s coming, but it surprises you. Every time.
I never really thought about going to visit it, on purpose. Getting out. Walking around. Looking inside. I mean it seemed cool but I just wasn’t compelled to visit.
Thankfully, my mom wanted to go.
It is one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever visited. It’s hard to explain why. You just have to go. Walk the gardens. Go inside. Look. Listen. Think. Just do it.
I’ve never met a Botanical Garden I really loved. I’ve visited quite a few and while they were nice to visit, I never felt compelled to go back. That all changed with a visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden and boy was that a shock.
Who would have guessed the arctic north would have such a wonderul place. Just a few miles from my house? And, as our fabulous tour guide said (over and over again) it’s all FREE! And we definitely intend to take advantage of the FREE! Pst, she really was fabulous. Great fun. The right type of attitude and personality for a tour guide. (More Videos of Chicago Botanic Garden, including a bunch of train shots.)
OK it’s only free if you don’t need to park a car. If you do need to park a car, it’s $20 a shot. Or if you don’t want to take one of the trams that carries you around the gardens. But, with a membership, the parking is FREE! And the trams come at a discounted price.
We did in fact buy a membership and we’re looking forward to many more visits this year – maybe even in the winter, when it’s snowy and icy.
The day we took my mom, we were there for hours and hours and we didn’t even make a dent in seeing everything – and we were exhausted. I think TW and I are going to make a spreadsheet and pick one piece of the garden to visit on each trip. That’s the only way to see everything. There’s just so much and it’s such a lovely place to visit.
The cafeteria isn’t great (but it has Wifi.) The library looks interesting but by the time we got there, we just wanted to sit in the air conditioning and rest for a bit. We were there during an orchid show and that was pretty interesting too.
We went back today, just me and TW, for the Farmer’s Market and that was nice. Small, only about 8-10 booths, including the Youth Garden kids who work at the Botanic Garden and sell the stuff they grow. I think we’ll probably sign up for a CSA box this fall… now that will be interesting.
