My Kind of Town

Friday, April 25

After saying goodbye to the aunties, I loaded up my lone suitcase (R took the other two bags when he flew home yesterday) and headed back to O'Hare to return the car. It was pouring rain when I got to the gas station (figures!) in Park Ridge, but I managed to fill up and stay fairly dry, thanks to my spiffy new raincoat! From the Multi-Modal Facility, I rode the tram back to Terminal 2 and then walked to the Blue Line station to take the train downtown. $5 for the CTA vs. $50 for an Uber - no brainer!

Suburbia

Hanging out with our friends RH and C at the Cubs game on Tuesday wasn't enough, so we also spent the day with them yesterday, too! We met them for lunch at Barnaby's in Northbrook. I guess it used to be a big Midwestern pizza chain, because both R and RH remembered going to Barnaby's (different locations) with their families as kids growing up in Chicago. Now there are only a few left...

Barnaby's is known for their crispy, thin crust pizza

Resilience and Beauty

We started the long drive back home around 8:00AM this morning. By 9:30AM, we reached the Mono Lake Vista Point and hopped out of the car to take some photos.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Since we had time before our flight home later today, we decided to pad our stamp stats with a re-visit to Manassas National Battlefield Park. But we took a slightly longer route to get there via VA-28 and VA-234 so that we could check off two more municipalities, Manassas and Manassas Park (see my earlier post on collecting counties).

40 miles, 1 hour

We're Going on a Stamp Hunt

Because the K St NW & 4 St NW stop was right across the street from our hotel, we started our day riding the P6 Metrobus this morning. We had already loaded SmarTrip cards onto our phones, so it was super easy to "tap to pay" when we boarded. Four stops later, we hopped off at 11th St NW & F St NW and walked the rest of the way, passing by the statue of Revolutionary War hero Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski on the eastern side of Freedom Plaza.

The stone pavers represent a map of Washington, DC

#10

It's been 30 years since our first-ever Las Vegas family reunion, and the 10th one is now officially in the books. A great time was had by all, as usual!

March 1994

July 2024

Check out these other blog posts for more group photos from reunions #2-7, #8, and #9!

Where the Streets Have No Name

In an effort to pad our stamp and unit totals, we decided to make our long drive home even longer with a detour to Joshua Tree National Park. Well, even though it added almost another 60 miles, it's still kinda on the way, isn't it?! 😜

515 miles, 8.5 hours

Take It Easy

The penultimate day of our drive back home to California put us back into familiar territory, for the most part. We've driven this stretch of I-40 before, except for the section between Grants, NM and Sanders, AZ, when we took a slight detour to visit El Malpais National Monument and El Morro National Monument in 2016.

385 miles, 6.5 hours

It's the Great Pumpkin

Besides visiting the grandparents, there were two other reasons for the timing of this trip back to Illinois... my hometown's annual Pumpkin Festival and my high school class reunion. 

57th Annual!

If you've ever used Libby's Pumpkin for any recipes, chances are pretty high that it was grown and harvested from fields in Central Illinois and canned at the Nestlé plant in Morton. The "Pumpkin Capital of the World" has held an annual 4-day celebration of everything pumpkin each September since 1967. Imagine a stereotypical small town fair (carnival rides, competitions, entertainment, food, parade, etc.) but on steroids - the Chamber of Commerce and its army of volunteers does an excellent job! However, the bigger draw for me is the chance to catch up with old friends since many people come back to see friends/family who are still in town.

As a bonus for my parents, my brother G and niece C also decided to visit when they heard we would be there (my sister-in-law couldn't come due to work 😢), so they had all of their grandkids together for the first time since before the pandemic.  

Going for Silver

Since joining the National Park Travelers Club in 2011, our travels have gotten us the Special Achievement Award (minimum 10 units in 2 regions with 20 stamps) every year except for 2020 (pandemic 😢) and last year when we earned the Bronze Master Traveler Award (min. 25 units, 4 regions, 50 stamps). This year because we have been able to visit a number of different NPS passport regions (Western, Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and North Atlantic), we are really close to achieving the Silver MTA (min. 35 units, 5 regions, 75 stamps). Only need stamps from 7 more units before the end of the year! 

So, in an effort to get our (okay, *my*) certificate, we took a slight detour on our way down to my parents' house today to move 3 units closer to Silver...

225 miles

Generational Talent

Even though M and J are now officially adults, it's nice to know that they still are up for going places with us. Guess it helps that Mom and Dad are picking up the tab for the hotel room, meals, and tickets to watch two days of NBA Summer League games in Las Vegas. Ha! But since both of them are gainfully employed this summer, they can play in the casino with their own hard-earned cash.

Because M needed to work remotely this morning, we picked up the boys in LA yesterday evening and started the drive to Vegas from there, stopping in Victorville for dinner at Freddy's and arriving at our hotel close to midnight. However, the late hour was not a deterrent for J, who was eager to make his donation to the house coffers since he wasn't old enough yet to gamble the last time we were here. M and R went with, but this tired driver kept her money and went to bed.

Body of Water

When it was announced in July that the Illinois men's basketball team was going to play two games in Las Vegas in November, we circled the dates on our calendar. Even better was that their first match-up was against UCLA! But what totally sealed the deal for a road trip to Vegas was the realization that I only needed passport stamps from a few more units in order to qualify for the Bronze Master Traveler Award from the National Park Travelers Club (NPTC). Oh, the lengths I will go to for some ink on a piece of paper...

Memories Deceive Me

I used to scrapbook, as the cabinet full of supplies and tools still in my house would attest. Maybe one day I'll go back to it and catch up on the projects I've been meaning to complete. But at least I can stay reasonably up-to-date on this blog. Even if no one outside of our family ever reads it, I'll keep posting entries because I enjoy writing about our travels. It's important to me to have a record of what we saw and what we did because I'm sure that I won't remember the details as clearly later on. 

Case in point: Our first stop today was Deception Pass. R asked if we had come here during our trip to Washington in 1996 because it seemed familiar. 

I said, "Nope."

Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer. 🤦🏻‍♀️

May 1996

Empty Nesters

Son #1 has flown the coop, working a full-time job and living in his own apartment. Son #2 is back at school for his junior year at UCLA. What are two empty nesters to do?! Go on vacation, of course!

Back in May, I started researching a couple different options. One possibility was going to New England or Acadia National Park for some fall color. But finding a cheap airfare ($178 roundtrip) to Seattle sealed the deal for a road trip thru the Pacific Northwest!

The Garden Isle

One thing to love about UCLA being on the quarter system is that the boys were finished with their finals on December 10. This meant that we could time a trip to Hawaiʻi before the prices on lodging and rental cars went up for the holidays. Another incentive to traveling off-peak would be avoiding crowds (and hopefully COVID!)

On the topic of COVID - all four of us have been vaccinated and boosted, so we were exempt from having to pre-test or self-quarantine upon arrival per the state's requirement. United even had a customer service counter in the terminal at LAX where we could show our proof of vaccination to get a wristband to bypass the verification line after landing in Lihue.

Sweet Home Chicago

For our last full day in Chicago, we headed downtown first thing this morning to play tourist. The CTA is running a promo ($5 all-day pass) to encourage people to return to using public transit, so we drove over to the Kimball station, parked the car, and rode the Brown Line to the Loop.

 

Happy to comply with the CTA mask requirement

The Road Less Traveled

Having stuffed ourselves over the past three days, my only regret was that we didn't have another meal (or stomach space) left to squeeze in a pizza from Monical's. Next time. *sigh*

We polished off the leftover bao for breakfast, and then loaded up the car to head back up to Chicago. But we couldn't leave before taking the usual photo of the boys with the grandparents.

100 Years Young

Clearly, the Grand Canyon is way older than a mere century. However, 2019 does mark the centennial of the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park. How cool to squeeze in a visit during this 100th anniversary year! Our only other trip to the South Rim was a little more than 10 years ago.

December 2008

The Friendly Confines

Given that the Cubs are 0-for-6 in games that we've watched in person, it's a good thing that we didn't get tickets to last night's game. Because if we had, everyone probably wouldn't still be buzzing about David Bote's pinch hit, two-strike, two-out, walk-off grand slam to beat the Nationals 4-3!!! HOLY COW!

So we'll settle for a behind-the-scenes Wrigley Field tour today instead!

All Aboard!

Riding the rails in 2009

In talking with our friends, we figured out why the airfares leaving Portland were so much more expensive: schools in Oregon start their spring break this weekend. That's probably also why our train fares were less expensive departing on Thursday as opposed to Friday.

To get home, we took Amtrak's Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles with an overnight on the train. In 2009, we took the California Zephyr from Sacramento to Chicago, spending two nights on board, and the boys still rank that vacation as one of our best trips. So, they were very enthusiastic about taking the train from Portland on the condition that we get full-size berths and a private bathroom in the sleepers. (On the California Zephyr, we had a family room with smaller child berths and a shared bathroom down the hall.)

They barely fit back then!