With football just around the corner and a holiday weekend a few days away, we decided that we had to go somewhere for the 4th. So with a map in front of us and a list of places that would be fun and every major & minor league baseball teams schedule out, we randomly picked to head north (again), this time to Chicago. It had been years since we have been up there and it was a drive we haven't done maybe ever.
So on Thursday evening after work, we started driving towards Chicago with no real definite plans. We drove through the beautiful countryside for hours just enjoying the views.
For dinner, we found a small town of Ironton, OH and stopped in an adorable place called The Shake Shoppe. It definitely felt like we had stepped back in time here. What a fun little area to drive through and check out.
As we drove through Ohio, we had to pull over to watch the beautiful sunset and make an attempt to capture it with our phones.
We made it as far as Indianapolis, IN before we found a place to crash for the night. In the morning, on our way out to the car, Jed had noticed that the front tire was wearing pretty bad. Upon further inspection, we decided that a quick pit stop at a tire place might not be a bad idea before we drove any further. Thankfully there was a Tires Plus less then a mile up the road.
We were both pretty excited that the place was opened first time on a holiday and we were able to get the car, in and out with not one, but 2 new tires in about an hour. Which was just enough time for us to walk down the street to the Bruegger's bagels.
Once we got back on the road, we decided it wasn't a real random road trip with out a lot of random stops so we took to Roadside America's website to see what kind of oddities we could find. Our first, the twisted house.
The twisted house was full of random treasures all around it. It was great to get out and explore this artspark area.
It wasn't long after we got back on the road that we saw signs for homemade, family root beer. I love root beer so we had to follow the billboards to Triple XXX Family Restaurant. This place was great. Not only did they make homemade root beer, but they were on Diners, Drive In and Dives AND they are officially a stop on Route 66. But there was only one small problem... they were closed.
So we had to settle with going to the local grocery store to get a four pack of the root beer for the road. As we were headed to the grocery store, we realized we were super close to Purdue University so we decided to take a detour from our detour and go check out the campus.
We will be making the trip to Purdue next season to watch the Hokies play here so maybe then we will be able to try Triple XXX Family Restaurant then.
With this detour behind us, we continued to head north and enjoy the scenery. For a few miles, we drove through tons of windmill fields with was really neat to see.
We were well on our way until another billboard caught our eye, Albanese Candy Factory. Enough said, right? So, of course, we had to stop. You were think I would have learned my lesson with our last detour to check for hours on a holiday so you can imagine my disappointment when we pulled up to an empty parking lot and a "CLOSED" sign.
Instead of candy, we settled for lunch at Portillo's, a local Chicago restaurant, that was just down the street for Albanese.
We decided to try the Roadside America website one more time before heading into Chicago. We found a tiny little town called Gary, Indiana, the birthplace of Michael Jackson. Thankfully, we were able to find the home and snap a few pictures. The house is only opened for special occasions so we were not allowed in, but it was still a success.
Chicago was our final destination for this trip and we made it there with plenty of time to explore before the fireworks display at the Navy Pier. So after dropping off our stuff, finding parking for the car and checking in, we started to walk the city.
The next must to in Chicago was to go grab a small bag of Garrett's popcorn to have with us as we explore.
After checking out a few additional shops along the Miracle Mile, we made our way down to the Navy Pier to scout it all out and it was a good thing. With hours before the fireworks the place was PACKED. We decided we would just hang out here, do a little exploring, people watching and grab a bite to eat. So we got in line for Harry Caray's restaurant on the pier.
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| This building was built with stones from all over the world. |
Once we finished dinner, we went to check out the ferris wheel, carousel and Crystal Garden before finding our seats at the end of the pier for the fireworks.
The fireworks show was complete with music on the pier and was exactly what you should see on the Fourth of July. After the festivities were over we slowly made our way back towards our hotel via the Stain Glass window museum at the pier, a few stops for more graffiti pictures and finally dessert at Pizzeria Duo.
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