January Chicago Getaway

January 16: It was a Thursday. I had started a new job on Monday. I drove Liz to the airport that morning for a flight out to Palm Springs. Months before I had gotten a ticket to see Jamie XX in Chicago, before I even had my new job. The feeling I had getting into my car after work to drive home to Chicago for the weekend? Elation, I think.

Since I was leaving from the north side of town my phone told me to go a curious way through Indiana to get to Oak Park. The drive took about 7 hours, that’s a lot longer than usual…but I got to try Taco Johns (actually not spectacular) and get a closer look at a roadside church which had captured my interest on a drive a year earlier.

January 17 - A Friday! Mom, Dad and I tried a Chinese place on Lake Street that was…basically ok, not the dumpling revelation I had hoped for, but I’d say it’s possible we return. Then I walked home, taking in the Oak Park sights, and checking out a new house on Ridgeland Ave that I really like.

Then that evening I went down to Wicker Park-ish to do some birthday shopping for Liz but also I tried on these three jackets that, well, I am still thinking about. Funny how that is with jackets sometimes. First photo is of me wearing a coat that I already own at the Baggu store where I was secretly buying Liz a present.

And then it was time to go to my show! And guess what? I took just about no photos. I was living in the moment! And also, there wasn’t a ton to take a pictures of. Just a dude at his decks and some mirror ball excitement every now and then. The show was good and long but really I was pretty distracted thinking about the jackets I had tried on a few hours earlier.

January 18 - Up and at ‘em (eventually) and heading downtown. I had a hunch that my ID from my new employer would get me into the Art Institute free aaaand…I was right! Had a nice couple hours looking at the art, not much had changed since the last time I went.

Then I walked through Chicago to the West Loop and got a French cheeseburger at the Global McDonalds but you know what? Someone STOLE my burger while I was waiting for it! Chicago is just as crime-ridden as they make it out to be! But they gave me another one. And I took the train back to Oak Park. That night we all had Italian food. I’m telling you about a lot of stuff that I don’t have pictures of.

January 19 - For months the “point” of this Chicago trip was going to the Jamie XX show, but in the week or so preceding the trip, I realized it was actually an opportunity to pay a visit to my High School friend Steve in Iowa City. The whole world opens up to you when you decide 3 hours isn’t a long car drive! It was great to see my buddy again and to meet his friendly cats. And on the way back to Oak Park I stopped at a truck stop that I had wondered about for decades, just because I could. It was a good stop.

January 20 - Just because it was the day for me to drive back to Columbus doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything! Emily, Mom and Dad were nice enough to head to the south side with me to go to Carnitas Uruapan, a place I had been meaning to return to with family for years. It’s great to accomplish a goal!

And finally I must conclude with a shoutout to one of the best rest stops in the game, the Kankake rest stop on the I-65 about an hour from Chicago. Really a great place for a quick break.

January 2025!

Here’s some of the fun stuff from January.

January 3: We finished off our vacation time with a visit to EnterTrainMent Junction, a giant model train place that, sadly, was closing that weekend. The crowds came out to see the place off and, well, you know Liz and I have discovered we love seeing giant model train places! This one was very professional and well put together and well run and it’s sad to see it go but we’re glad we got to tell it goodbye. Also, there was like a carnival fun house kind of place attached to it so I got to get lost in a real mirror maze, just like on TV.

January 4: We took a walk along the Scioto river downtown. It. Was. Cold! But also we had fun being together and posing with the dear deer statues.

January 12: Took a little trip to have a little lookaround of the Columbus main branch library. Quite nice! Left with a huge stack of cookbooks.

January 14: Well here’s something very cool. Friend of the blog and family Jeff blew through Columbus on his way back to New York from Los Angeles … it’s just a drive he does for work every winter. We grabbed a little lunch at our local Mexican grocery store. Very nice lunch break.

January 16 - Here’s a mysterious gap in the blog where Liz goes to Palms Springs and I go to Chicago. There will be a Chicago post soon, that's for sure.

January 23 - Went to an OSU Women’s Basketball game with some of the Gardners. There was a hookup via Carolyn’s roommate that landed us in a suite. That’s basically my favorite way to watch a women’s basketball game, from a suite.

California Christmas 2024, pt. 2: the Roadtrip

December 27th: We got up early, but not too early, and walked up to Colorado Blvd to be first in line to pick up a rental car. Not a behorned Cadillac, but a nice new Prius that would wow us with its 50mpg efficiency—all that you behold in the following post was done on less than a tank of gas.

And then we zipped west over to an outpost of Homestate, our favorite LA-area breakfast taco emporium…and as luck would have it, it was but a few blocks away from a Sidecar Donut as well!

Energized, we enjoyed a session at the LA Temple, our favorite LA-area temple.

And then we drove to Santa Barbara. And let me tell you, it was not the zippy ride I had hoped (quite foolishly) that it would be. BUT in Santa Barbara I was reunited with Hannah from down the block/junior high/high school/New York and we ate a delicious late lunch at La Super-Rica (where the food did not come out as zippy quick as I foolishly had hoped).

And then we drove through the dark misty windy mountains to a destination worthy of the journey: The Madonna Inn!! It’s too bad I didn’t get any super-good night time establishing shots—this was hard to do as it was the misty night time when we got there. But I had been curious about visiting this famous hotel for many years and when we started making our little road trip plan I realized the opportunity I had been waiting for had presented itself. I booked us the “Voux” room, the picture below is from the website.

We dressed ourselves up for dinner at the restaurant’s famous Gold Rush Steakhouse for a nice steak dinner and a slice of their famous pink cake and then poked around the hotel a bit, too. After dinner I floated on my back in the pool looking up at the stars while Liz stayed dry and warm and read.

We woke up to a beautiful San Louis Obispo morning and got our extensive explore on, visiting the door of each of the hotel’s individually-themed rooms, imagining what wonders might be behind each door.

With our wonderful Madonna Inn time drawing to a close, it was time to drive down to the inspiration of our roadtrip…here’s a clue of what we were headed for…

Yes, a bit of Solvang, the Danish-Californian wonderland! It was a good walk around and explore but also I was at the point of vacation where I was taking a lot fewer photos because, well, I was a little tired of taking photos.

From Solvang we returned to Santa Barbara to visit the McDonalds that claims to have created the Egg McMuffin but evidence from 1995 shows that they just moved the Egg McMuffin plaque to this location.

From there we drove into downtown LA for a little Detroit snack of a suadero taco, suadero quesadilla (the suadero at Ditroit is major detour worthy), and a hibiscus meringue sundae.

And from there we went to Liz’s high school friend Kim’s apartment for a hang with Kim and her fiancee Alfredo and a little Thai dinner at Night + Market Song (good to see you again, startled pig)!

And then it was back to Grandma’s house with us. While we were away Emily had arrived and she took our porch photo the next morning when we left for LAX before 6am. Here’s a little behind the scenes info and a recommendation: We rented our car in Pasadena but booked it for an LAX return. The early Sunday morning traffic was 0 and when you return a car to LAX you take it to this giant parking lot on the opposite side of LAX from the usual crowds and the drop off process is basically instantaneous and then you get on a shuttle that takes you to your terminal real quick. It basically took it no time. Big recommendation.

And that was our Christmas! Soon I’ll be blogging to you about 2025! Can you believe it?