Route 66 or bust

September 22, 2017

                We headed out of Chicago by locking through to the Illinois River.  The lock is to make sure the water runs to St. Louis instead of Lake Michigan.  The Army Corps of Engineers changed the flow of the river by digging it lower than the lake,  in time for the world’s expo so that the lake wouldn’t be too polluted.  Lots of very low bridges, but we made it under all of them and arrived in Joliett, tied up to the wall in the bicentennial park,  and spent a very hot afternoon in our air conditioned salon watching the start of the Fed Ex finals.  Met some other looper boats headed in the same direction for the first time since Milwaukee. 

    The next morning I got up early and while it was still cool walked over the Jitters Coffee shop.  The most remarkable coffee shop I have visited, right on the corner of Route 66.

     

Rescue operation for a cat in the water

Rescued cat

Jitters Coffe Shop

     We made our first mistake on the locks in the inland river system, by leaving the wall before calling the lock to find out what was going on.  The locks on the Illinois River system operate 24/7 so they are sometimes down for maintenance.  We had a two hour wait, 10 minutes from Joliett.  We dropped anchor, but some of the other boats went back to Joliett and on my recommendations went and had breakfast at The Jitters. 

         The next lock also took a long time since the lockmasters give preference to the tugs and barges, so we had to wait again for a barge to catch up for us to go through.  At 4 o’clock I had had enough of locks so we pulled into a small marina above the next one.  Later I learned that the boats that had gone on down to the next lock took 4 hours to get through and finished the day in the dark, looking for the marina.

September 23, 2017

          We went down early the next morning and had a lock through with a really big barge that had a little room in front for us and another boat

John boat hook dueling with Insandity Admiral

 and we cruised into Heritage Harbor in time for nettwork coverage of the Fed Ex.  After a quick ride into town, to check out the Octoberfest we came back to the marina and had a really good dinner in the Red Dog Restaurant there.

September 24, 2017

      John headed out to play golf on his bike, with his clubs on his back and I went back to the Octoberfest since they were having a Polka Mass under the tent.   Sat and chatted with a nice group of ladies and enjoyed the standing room only mass complete with accordion and lederhosen.  (Not on the priest) 

Breakfast at a unique restaurant The Pink Chihuahua and met John back at the boat for the final day of the Fed Ex.  Really sorry Paul Casey didn’t win.  We had a great briefing from the dockmaster at the marina about what to expect the rest of the way to St Louis.   After all of the rain and flooding earlier in the summer, they have had 72 days without rain and now the rivers are really low so we have to be careful where we try to anchor and ever some marinas we can’t get into.

 

Owners of the Pink Chihuahua

Ottowa was the site of the first Lincoln Douglas debate.

Chicago

Sept 17, 18, 19, 2017

       Chicago.    Again a long trip though not so bumpy but we decided it was time to be finished with Lake Michigan and headed to Chicago.  It was a huge, no frills marina,  in Burnham Harbor, but the location was perfect.  Right on the Museum Campus which houses the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, Soldier Field and McCormick Place, and a Lake Front bike path that runs for 18 miles north and south along  lake so it was easy to get anywhere.  Our first dinner was at a Eleven City Café where we had Latke, Krugel and pastrami sandwiches.  The next morning we had scheduled a bike tour of the near north side including the Gold Coast, Old Town and the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Bicycling 3 miles to the meeting point was easy along the lake front and our guide, Joey of Bobby’s Bike Hikes, an actor by night and a tour guide by day filled us in on a lot of the history of Chicago, including exhonorating Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.     An amazing lunch at The Purple Pig and back to the boat for naps

The original Bunny Club in Chicago's Gold Coast

Most famous engagement picture site, the kissing bridge in Lincoln Park

Lion in Loncoln Park Zoo

       Next day we did a river cruise that highlighted all of the unique buildings and architectural styles of Chicago. By going down the river, we could see most of the famous buildings from a better distance than from the street.  Whoever started the Chicago fire should get a medal because to completely burned down the main part of town and allowed it to rebuild with a plan and the first true “skyscapers” in the world.  Most of which are still there since it has been less than 150 years since the fire.  Another great lunch a Bandera restaurant and John headed back to the boat and I went window shopping on the Magnificant Mile.  It really was neat to see all those famous stores in an urban setting.  I’ve seen most before, but usually in a mega mall. And the displays in the windows were fantastic.   The Orvis store was the only one that seemed to fit my lifestyle so I bought a couple things there.

Project to raise money for the K9 unit of Chicago PD.  About 150 of these were all over the downtown area

Cool old building

        Wednesday I finally went to the Field Museum since our boat was only 500 yards away.  I wasn’t looking forward to seeing a bunch of stuffed animals, but there were all sorts of interpretive exhibits that made me wish I had left more time for it.  And they had the famous man eating lion of Tsavo.  I did go look at the stuffed animals, but they made a point of saying that the specimens were all more than 50 years old and they don’t really do that anymore.  But reexamining all of the specimens that they have with new techniques and technology gives them lots of useful information about the world in general over the last 175 years.

      After a quick trip to Trader Joes, the closest grocery we went out for an evening on the town to celebrate my birthday.  Dinner of tapas at a neat Spanish restaurant, repertory theater, Spamilton, obviously a spoof on you know what, and a drink at the lounge at the top of the John Hancock building.  Great way to end our trip to Chicago.

Great end to a fun stop in Chicago.

       

       

         

          

   

More golf

Sept 12,13,14  2017

        We left Sheboygan but John was so jazzed by the way his knees were behaving we made a tee time to play Erin Hills, where the 2017 US Open was played this year, even though we would have to walk the whole round.  After a long day of bouncing around on Lake Michigan we arrived at a huge marina in Milwaukee.  Our first  dinner was at Milwaukee Brats.  I decided it must be the best brats place out of 6 or 7 on the street because it had a free bus to Packer and Brewer games.  A sampler plate of brats did help be sort out all the different kinds.  The next day John headed out on a long bike ride and I went to a beautiful little museum that recorded that recorded the history of Jews in Milwaukee.  There was no mention of the Brandeis family but it n was an interesting museum.  Then on to the Public Market, sort or an Old Town area, but the market had an amazing variety of food stalls.  I rode my bike up along the Riverwalk for a ways and headed back to the boat.  That night I went to a play by myself.  It was a Pulitzer Prize winning play, Next to Normal, but I didn’t feel like subjecting John to a play about a manic depressive woman and her affect on her family.   I was very good, and well done.  The nest day we rented a car and headed out to the golf course.  About 35 miles out of the city we got a good tour of the area around Milwaukee.  The course was great, the guys we played with fun and John’s knees held up.  After a wonderful dinner at the restaurant at the course we got back to  the marina.  I found a great Whole Foods Store close by to replenish our larder and we headed south again.

I can't believe the only picture I took of Milwaukee was another golfing picture.
Excepr for the pictures of the damage to our rental car we got somewhere, but I don't need to post those.

Sept 15, 16 2017

        We only went as far as Racine, a small, struggling town 20 miles south of Milwaukee, but spent two nights there since it was a beautiful resort with swimming pool and the lake was pretty rough.  So far it has become apparent that along Lake Michigan, each area identifies itself with one wave of immigrants or another.  Racine considers its forbears to be Danish, though its obvious that lots of different eastern Europeans came to all of the mid west, first by way of the St Lawrence, then the Erie Canal and finally the railroads.  But Danish is Racine so I had to find the oldest Danish bakery in the city and great a Kringle.  It really was a bakery full of delicious looking pastries that I couldn’t pronounce and looked wonderful.  A tour down mainstreet, with some interesting little stores and back to the dock.   The next day the lake was still rough so we stuck around the dock, did a little swimming, laundry and joined the party on our dock.  This was a weekend so lots of boat owners were down at the dock to party and enjoy that last few warm days of summer before they have to pull their boats out of the water for the winter.

Heading south with a golfing fool

August 24-Sept 5. 2017

      Colorado, catching up with family, church gossip, kids, grandkids, golfingt buddies and friends.  Helped get signs up for the Art Dague pool initiative.  John hunted, worked and played in the Labor Day golf tournament.  But we were both ready to head back to the boat.

September 6, 2017

       John waited for a mechanic to show up to change out the drinking water pump that had been overheating while I went for a nice walk up the shore.  All done when I got back and John headed down to Green Bay to visit Jeff Posey who had had surgery for a busted up leg.  I headed into Sturgeon Bay to visit the shops. There were some really nice one’s including a bookstore, a quilt shop and lots of Door county, cherry souvenirs.  

Got the pattern for this one

   Jim and Polly came up and we went to a beautiful restaurant for the Wednesday night German specials.

September 7, 2017

      Polly cooked a “full Wisconsin” breakfast and we pulled in the lines and headed south.  We really feel like we have turned the corner on the trip, and not any too soon.  I was really cold.  We turned on the heater for the first time that night in Kewaunee. 

     Nice little town just about 25 miles south of Sturgeon Bay.  I walked into town and stopped at a cheese store and talked to the owner, a woman from the Netherlands.  It was her husband’s dream to have a small farm with some cows and make cheese like his grandmother in Holland.  And here they were.  I had a cheese tasting and decided that 18 month Gouda was really better than 3 month.  Of course I didn’t think to take here picture!

     Next morning I walked into town for a latte and pastry at Anne’s coffee house, stopped at the farmers’ market for the last corn and rasberries of the season and at the Fish market for fresh

September 8, 2017

          25 miles further we were in Sheboygan.  A bike ride around the town that afternoon set me up for a good day the next and the aforementioned dinner topped off a Wisconsin day.

September 9, 2017

         John took off on his bicycle to find a haircut and I headed downtown for breakfast at an amazing restaurant, Field to Fork, with a map on the wall of all the source farms for the ingredients.  The highlight of town was an incredible museum, The Kohler Arts Center.  It specializes in “outsider art”  and I would have to say that the art looked like most of the artists were certifiable.  But I guess there often is a fine line between madness and genius.  No realistic oil painting here.  If fact not many paintings at all.  Most of the art was 3 D and a lot was monumental.

This artist is the Rhinestone Cowboy and they have his whole house!

My favorite 

Every bathroom was an art piece.

       Some shopping at a wonderful yarn shop, kitchen store anu riding around the harbor that has been beautifully restored from its warehouse and coal loading days and back the the boat for a nap before heading out to dinner.  We decided on The Duke of Devon because it was the closest and looked interesting.  It was a gastro pub to equal anything in England!

     I went to a 100 year old German church on Sunday which was one of a group of churches that had been combined.  Beautiful wood carving, a huge organ that they used, a friendly congregation with lots of young people and a priest that knew when to quit.

       John’s knees hadn’t been feeling too good, but with the rest on the boat and the proximity to Kohler and Whistling Straits he decided they felt good enough to play.  We couldn’t play the US Open course because there are no carts allowed but we played the other links course, The Irish, which we both really liked. Our fore caddie Jordan, was great and with him telling us where it hit the ball, and lining up our putts we both played pretty well.   And John got a hole in one!!

John and Jordan on  #13, The Irish at Whistling Straits

     Of course no moderation John decided that we should play the next day at the Blackwolf Run course, the Rivers, where the women play the US Open.  I really enjoyed that too, but John was feeling good enough to play the second course, the Meadows there!!  I drew the line and headed over to Bookworm Gardens which I hadn’t gotten to the day before.

      It was a beautiful botanic garden set up for children and each area of the garden was themed after a children’s book with benches and chairs to sit and read the waterproof copies of the books.  The classics were there, Peter Rabbit, Charlotte’s Web and Little House on the Prairie but also lots of books I’d never heard of.   It was wonderful.   One of the neatest displays was donated by the PGA wives association and featured the book, Connor the Caddie, and a miniature Whistling Straits clubhouse complete with golf hole, sand traps and sheep.

Winnie the Pooh

Diary of a Worm

No caption needed

Dinosaur Bones

Connor the Caddie

Hanzel and Gretel's cottage

Sally with the real sheep at Whistling Straits.

Lake Michigan

Friday, August 18.2017  continued

    I finished the day checking out a few gift shops and visiting a nice local maritime museum with a very friendly lady who filled me in on some of the information about the fishing and logging industry on the island.

WPA mural of the fishing industry on Beaver Island

     That night  we rode our bikes out to a nice restaurant in the old rectory of the Catholic Church across from the Cemetery.  They had cut the church in half and moved it sometime in the last fifty years but the rectory had been repurposed.

Saturday August 19, 2017

     The winds were dying down and it looked like we might only have on day to get across Lake Michigan before they started again.  So we set out 75 miles across the lake to Washington island, on the Door Peninsula with the somewhat calmer waters of Green Bay.  After a very long day we landed in a calm marina and I took off for a 5 miles bike ride to get the kinks out.  The marina had charcoal grilles so I made our favorite dinner, grilled rib eye, sauted mushroom and onions and green salad and some good Michigan corn. 

Sunday, August 20 , 2017

    After a bike ride and breakfast at the Red Cup Café we opted for the Cherry Train Tour of the Island.  The island was big enough and sparsely populated enough to be a pretty long bike ride.

Saw a nice art gallery and nature center in an old school.  Went to a beach with polished dolomite rock.  And saw farm museum and a lavender farm, and the highlight of the trip was a beautiful small chapel size log church built on the style of the old Scandanavian churches.  This Island traces it heritage to Icelanders who came here in the 19^th century.

T

Monday, August 21, 2017

      Again weather dictated our schedule and we headed out across the Gates of Death, the strait between Washington Island and the mainland of the Door Penninsula, trying to stay ahead of the weather.  We pulled In at Fish Creek just as the winds we picking up and docked without too much trouble.  I checked the local theater listings, not expecting to find much on a Monday, but there was a play out in an amphitheater in Penninsula State Park that didn’t look too far for bikes since there isn’t much Uber around here.   Got tickets and reported to John our plans for the evening, starting with dinner and a well recommended pizza place at the entrance to the park and a 6:30 show.  Dinner was light enough to cycle three miles.  I had already been out in the afternoon so we wouldn’t get lost, and we had benches with backs and cushions.   Really good play,  a comedy about Fish creek and the old lodges and a movies company looking for a setting for Oklahoma!  Actually really well done under the pines and stars of Door peninsula on Lake Michigan.

August 22, 2017

     The next morning the wind was howling and it looked like we weren’t going anywhere so I headed to town to finish some of the shops.  And wonderful glass shop with garden toys would have gotten more of my money but I couldn’t figure out how to get anything home.   Being on a boat has really been good for my shopping discipline. 

      Getting back to the boat John thought the wind had died down enough to try the run to Sturgeon Bay, 25 miles away.  I wasn’t so sure, but he’s the captain, and a pretty responsible one at that,  so rocking and rolling we headed down the bay to meet our friend Jim Schauss at his dock on Sturgeon Bay.  20 miles of rocking and rolling later we were met with a welcoming committee of Don Baryenbruch, Terry Posey and Jim and threw them our lines to pull us around into Jim’s dock.

All set on Jim Schauss' dock

  I was really glad to get off the boat and we had a great time.  I  can't believe that neither John or I got a picture of all the folks.  Karen, if you did, send it to John and I'll include it in the blog,

August 23, 2017

           A lazy day visiting with friends and getting the boat ready to leave for 12 days and the next morning we headed to Colorado for the first time in 8 months.

         

          

      

Lake Michigan

Friday, August 18.2017  continued

    I finished the day checking out a few gift shops and visiting a nice local maritime museum with a very friendly lady who filled me in on some of the information about the fishing and logging industry on the island.

     That night  we rode our bikes out to a nice restaurant in the old rectory of the Catholic Church across from the Cemetery.  They had cut the church in half and moved it sometime in the last fifty years but the rectory had been repurposed.

Saturday August 19, 2017

     The winds were dying down and it looked like we might only have on day to get across Lake Michigan before they started again.  So we set out 75 miles across the lake to Washington island, on the Door Peninsula with the somewhat calmer waters of Green Bay.  After a very long day we landed in a calm marina and I took off for a 5 miles bike ride to get the kinks out.  The marina had charcoal grilles so I made our favorite dinner, grilled rib eye, sauted mushroom and onions and green salad and some good Michigan corn. 

Sunday, August 20 , 2017

    After a bike ride and breakfast at the Red Cup Café we opted for the Cherry Train Tour of the Island.  The island was big enough and sparsely populated enough to be a pretty long bike ride.

Saw a nice art gallery and nature center in an old school.  Went to a beach with polished dolomite rock.  And saw farm museum and a lavender farm, and the highlight of the trip was a beautiful small chapel size log church built on the style of the old Scandanavian churches.  This Island traces it heritage to Icelanders who came here in the 19^th century.