Ian does his thing

9 August: The time zone thing is wacky in Indiana. In order to assure we'd arrive in Cincy by 11 Ohio EDT, we had to get up in Indiana at 6:30 Indiana EST, which is the same currently as Chicago CDT. It's why we arrived at Vivian's house early and didn't even know it. I had changed my watch to EDT and forgotten to switch back, so as I woke repeatedly to check the time and finally go myself dressed... I was up at 5:30 confused why it was still dark out. I caught the error before waking the kids but too late for me to go back to sleep. The kids still were grumbly at 6:30.

All that to say, we got up early and didn't like it one bit.

But we drove out of Indianapolist right on time and arrived in Cincinnati without incident and with enough time to see Ian's childhood home. Someone else is living there, of course, and happened to be outside, so no photos for us. Along the roads we saw where Ian did pizza delivery, which stores had changed and which hadn't, and other snippets.
But there wasn't that much time, so he dropped us off at Burnet Woods park right next to the University of Cincinnati campus and took off to give a lecture to a college class. The kids and I played at a playground, walked around the park and snacked our way through the next 3 hours. Lunch was quick, easy and good at Skyline Chili.
Traffic caught us getting out of Cincy. And caught us again in the middle of Lexington. A 2 hour drive turned into 4 and we were more than ready to order room service. The hotel doesn't have room service. We hit the mall searching for a restaurant better than food court offerings. There were none. But Katherine did score a couple new jeans that actually fit. She's grown again.
We ordered Chinese which took an hour to arrive, and watched Episode 3 on Pay-per-view. It ended up being a much longer day than we'd anticipated but generally a good one.
Regret for the day: Rather than spending 3 hours at a park, we should have gone 2 blocks up and spent 3 hours at the Cincinnati Zoo. Why didn't we? I don't know.

We're back in Chicago.

Here I am with another short and to the point entry about our trip. We're back in Chicago for an overnight.

August 7th, yesterday, we checked out of the Milwaukee hotel with every belonging and 8 people in our Sequioa. I compared it to driving with a whale on one's back. At least Ian was driving and not me. It was only for the morning though, as after church and lunch we dropped my parents and their suitcases off at the airport. We had also given 4 bags of ourgrown and/or winter clothes to my uncle, so come the afternoon we could all stretch in the car again.
After breakfast (if you are traveling through hotels and aren't packing enough food of your own for the trip, I strongly encourage folks to stay at places that have breakfast. On -normal- trip days, this would be plenty to get us through to the early afternoon for lunch, but seeing as family get-togethers are all about sharing food, it got us through until about 11 a.m. each day, before someone (not our kids) declared they wnated to eat something) we crossed all of Milwaukee to attend Mass at St. Augustine, the church we went to every summer I visited, and the same one my parents were married at. The pastor is ancient, with a tendency to wander in his prayers, but the service was heartfelt and a little sad as they wished one of their altar boys farewell. He's joining the Marines this week.
Not too far away is my uncle's house. We went in circles for a bit (there are several street with the same name, none of them connecting) but finally followed the stream of kids who had parked themselves at different corners as guides, much like glowing algae in the ocean. We did finally arrive and met with a fantastic picnic. My dad cooked steaks, and my aunt and uncle made rice and chili, with plenty of fruits and veggies to go with. We all ate out in the garage which surprisingly was not chaos with 19 people moving about. Ian and I had a little tour of their house and saw the created submarine bunks and the crazy amounts of toys and storage for the kids. And to think they homeschool too. Amazing.
Our kids had a fabulous time. There were so many toys and kids to play with I'm surprised we got them away as easily as we did. Katherine and Nicholas especially are going to miss them.
A quick farewell at the airport to my parents, and we drove the short distance to Chicago. Jonathon took a very long nap while the rest of us vegged before having dinner with Anne (from Manila) at Ed Debevic's down the street from our hotel. The food was good, but the kids were still worn out, so it wasn't long before we tossed them into their beds for the night.

Beer, Science and Picnic

Yesterday we spent the entire day with "the family".

We met the crew at the Miller Brewery factory for its free tour. Has the tour changed in the past 15 years? I seem to recall seeing more of the process of -making- beer, rather than a lengthy chat about packaging beer and how much is made each day. The 15 minute movie aka commercial shown before the tour is roll-on-the-floor funny. If nothing else, you should take the tour to see the film. Maybe someone else knows if the creators were serious, or realized just how ridiculous they sound...
Since the Dawn of Time, man has waited for... Miller Time.
Ian had the requisite sample and all the kids got beer can coin banks. Not too shabby.
We scooted off to the Milwaukee Public Museum with the adjoining Discovery World hands-on science center. The kids had an absolute blast at Discovery World with all the exhibits and playing with my 11 cousins. My dad bought tickets for everyone to see the "Mystery of the Nile" IMAX movie which was brilliant, and we were just in time to catch a live show with a Disovery World fellow who did experiments with fire and liquid nitrogen. All the kids made their own water squirters afterwards in the craft center.
After about 4 hours there, we descended on my aunt's home and enjoyed a full picnic. Along the way we stopped at a farmer's market and picked up the freshest of fruits to share, which thankfully were gobbled up by all the kids. I'm still trying to detox the family by moving away from bratwurst and everything fried. The kids played the entire time on the large lawn with squirters and soaker balls; by the end Nicholas was thoroughly soaked. Thank goodness I'd brought laundry to do because by the end of the picnic we had clean, dry and -warm- clothes for everyone to change into. Elllie (one of my cousins) had also been sprayed and was miserable, so Katherine shared a clean, dry shirt with her.
By 8 p.m. we were exhausted and ready to go. Presents were passed out (Teresa, a cousin, and Jonathon both have birthdays coming, bu we also brought little gifts for all the kids) and we went back to the hotel. Some of the laundry wasn't done, so Ian and my dad went next door to the laundromat to run the dry cycle.
Cute moment: As we were leaving Irene's house (my aunt), Nicholas looked a little glum. I asked him what was wrong since he'd been playing so hard with his favorite cousins, Josh and Issac. He hung his head and said "I had too much fun." He was worn out.

I'm sure there's a song somewhere about the State Fair

Yesterday we sort of struck out on our own. The point of being in the flat land of concrete roads is to see my mom's side of the family, so when my uncle decided that his family wasn't going to the Fair, my mom was in a pickle.

Milwaukee, August 5: My aunt, a cousin and my grandmother did come with us, so it wasn't a total loss as far as family time. We didn't spend all that much time (the fair is a lot bigger when you're a kid), but we did walk the center market, meandered through some animal barns, saw some Wisconsin products, watched a circus and did about 1/2 the Expo center, while completely ignoring midway. The last is obvious, right?
The center market should be renamed Fried City. Deep fried cheese curds reigned supreme. It's quite sad to see huge people in electric wheelchairs, eating from a huge pile of fried cheese. I can only hope it's a once a year fair indulgence. We all enjoyed the Birthing Barn with a newborn calf and hatching chicks. The girls felt the need to share details of balut with the incubator kid. The Wisconsin products building was interesting. The kids participated in a veggiecar race (you figure it out) and we all got free fridge thermometers. That's 1/2 the fun at a fair, right? All the free stuff. The Expo building should have been renamed "As Seen on TV" building. We spent a large chunk of time at the Polish stall. Ian picked up an Intro to Polish book and spent about 5 minutes getting his mouth to form My name is Ian. The Polish word "sie" is pronounced closer to "sh-ow" with a swallowed n at the end. Even with my grandmother there, he tried to make some sounds match the spelling. All the kids went wall climbing. Jonathon made a good attempt.
Lunch was, of course, brats/hot dogs/burgers. But most important, dessert was cream puffs. That's the one reason -I- wanted to go to the Fair, and they were so worth it. Huge and fluffy with -real- whipped cream, none of that Cool Whip or Dream Whip junk.
Then we were off to the circus. Which, of all things, was free! The kids enjoyed it, but everyone's favorite was the cats. Trained cats walking along tightropes, weaving between poles, and doing other cat type tricks. Immediately following the circus was Kids Circus. Nicholas and Jonathon volunteered to go up and they were costumed dogs among the kid horses and elephants. It was so cute! I'll put those pictures up when I can.
We met up with my uncle at my aunt's house, and the 22 of us had dinner at Golden Coral.
Today is a Miller Brewery tour, a museum and a picnic at my aunt's house.

Are we there yet?

Yesterday was designated Driving Day. We traveled from Toledo to Milwaukee with a stop for lunch in Indiana and a painful trek though early rush hour Chicago.

With plenty of...

Are we there yet?
How much longer?
My legs are stiff.
How many more hours?

Thank goodness for car games.

When we were in Maine, my aunt gave the kids two sets of simple magnetic games like Chutes and Ladders and Checkers. Everything fits inside the metal box and all the pieces stick to the box, so (in theory) it's all contained. We also played a lot of catchphrase, some hangman, and car bingo. The girls have binders of page protector covered mazes, word searches and quizzes with plenty of white board markers. Katherine is still working on _1/2 Blood Prince_ while Rebecca listens to _Chamber of Secrets_ on her iPod shuffle. Jonathon took a long nap in the afternoon, but the boys also have magnet books (farm and trucks) to play pretend, along with twistable crayons to color with and their own music players.
The kids are busy in the car.
But leaving Toledo at 10 and arriving in Milwaukee at 6 (Eastern) is still a long day. I mentioned the traffic, that we certainly could have done without. But what really gave a sour note to the day was lunch. We have the Roadfood book and decided that we wanted to try something different than a fast food place at a toll plaza. Our first mistake was not choosing something -after- getting through Chicago. Waiting the extra time before Chicago pushed us into the start of rush hour at 3 p.m. There's always construction going on too, which encouraged more crankiness.
Anyway, we picked a place called Phil Smidt and Sons (www.froglegs.com), a renowned seafood place known for its "mess of perch" and froglegs. That would break up the day! The Roadfood guide said it was in a renovated part of the Michigan Lake coast, which turned out to be in an area with plenty of empty dilapidated warehouse types of buildings... and a brand new casino. The restaurant itself has no view of the water, or view of anything for that matter and there's no outdoor seating. I suppose we should have scrapped our plans as soon as I called up the place and asked for directions from the 80/90 fareway and was told "I don't know where that is." Uh... it's 5 miles past where it becomes the 90 tollroad? "Oh... get off at Calumet, go north until you hit the water." Ooookay. We found it without trouble.
We should have turned around when it took 10 minutes to be seated into a nearly empty dining room. We should have left when it took 30 minutes to give our order. And again an hour later when everyone else in the room who had arrived before -and- after us had been served while we sat and asked several times "How much longer.. we still need to get through Chicago." The staff gave the kids balloons and frog toys. We were told "a few more minutes" four times. The waitress never asked if we needed anything, never refilled drinks, and in fact -removed- all the premeal snacking stuff before our food ever arrived (one of the draws for this place are the coleslaw, cottage cheese, kidney bean salad, etc. for every table, the kids were snacking relatively happily while coloring until then).
Then when the food finally did arrive... ugh. For a place featured in Gourmet magazine I expected more for $6, than 1/2 a box of Kraft mac&cheese for Jonathon. I'm not kidding, it was exactly the same as the stuff you and I make in our own kitchens. The girls pasta? Spaghetti noodles with boring red sauce. By boring I mean.. no meat, no deep red color, more like a warm tomato salsa. Nicholas had chicken nuggets that he barely touched. I think they were overdone. And Ian and I had the 'specials'. The perch was tasteless and the frog legs were greasy.
Don't. Go. We ate so fast and left feeling yucky. just down the street was a huge grassy area with a big playground, right on Lake Michigan. If we'd been fed like normal people, we could have spent a half hour burning some serious energy and having fun. But we left cranky and skipped the playground to try to get through Chicago.
Which we did, and found our hotel in Milwaukee, and picked up my parents at the airport, had dinner at Ponderosa and put everyone to bed by 10:30 local time.
Today will be a lot more fun. And no more Roadfood.

Take me out to the ballgame

I'm not a fan of baseball, but last night we were part of the cheering Toledo fan pack.

Toledo, August 3: After breakfast in Pittsburgh we had a 3 hour drive to Toledo, Ohio. There's not much to this city, it's like an overgrown small town. The small part we saw was composed of ancient brick buildings, most of them empty and all of them needing TLC.
We drove in around 1 p.m. and went straight to Tony Packo's for lunch where we ate the spiciest food we've had in a while. Jonathon had his standard Mac&cheese which might seem a sacrilege in a place as famous for hot dogs as Packo's, but he wouldn't have made it far with any of the normal toppings. Nicholas and Rebecca did have plain hot dogs, but what fun is that? Katherine chose the chilimac (chili and toppings on a pile of mini dumplings) but she didn't eat more than a few bites. I guess it was't quite as impressive an experience for our family as it should have been.
I admit I took a photo of the M*A*S*H crew photo, surrounded by signed hot dog buns. I didn't quite -get- the signed buns... but someone thought it was cool and now there are hundreds of them lining the walls.
The Hampton Inns and Suites is right near the Michigan border and our room is fabulous. The kids have room to run around and I honestly think it's bigger than Jeff's apartment, complete with kitchen area and separate toilet and sink areas. It's really comfortable for us. We checked in a few minutes before our room was ready and went across the street to Meijer to buy some forgotten items to pass the time. Rebecca treated herself and siblings to the best deal in the U.S., the penny ride. For a penny, they rode a mechanical horse for a minute. For the adults we saw an even better deal in the parking lot, a sign for a TARTA shuttle to Mudhens games. At the hotel we looked it up on-line (the front desk didn't have a clue) and for $1/person or $2/5 people there's a shuttle for ever Mudhens game. Even better, yesterday was Ozone Day or something, so the shuttle was free. OK, so it was only $3 we saved, but everything counts... that's the cost of postcards or yet another keychain. Katherine collects keychains. You can imagine what her collection looks like already.
Back at the hotel, everyone changed into swimsuits and went to the pool. The kids burnt energy for an hour with Sharks&Minnows. You should see Nicholas, he can swim half the length of one of these hotel pools and tries to do somersaults and swim to the bottom. Once we're in Togo, he'll turn into a fish. Katherine and Rebecca's strokes have gone to pot, but we'll fix that later. Jonathon is still a fraidy cat.
Washed and dried, we took the shuttle to the game, checked out all the food options and took our seats in the front row along the 3rd base line. The game was a blast, ending in a nailbiter top of the 9th with a score of 9-8 Mudhens. I've never been to a small hometown game and wasn't expecting to have such a great time. The kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly with yelling, doing the chicken dance and primarily trying to catch baseballs. Jonathon set up his hat on the wall in front of us and assured me he was ready when a ball came down. It would land right in his hat. We had two near catches, one to the right and one to the left, but no real chance of catching our own. We bought one in the gift shop instead.
We ate huge nacho grandes, gyros, pepsis and ice creams while we sat for three hours and yelled ourselves hoarse. 1st base line: MUD! 3rd base line: HENS! And boy did we encourage the Braves Pena to strike out. Every time he did, a random row in the stadium would get free ice cream.
Yeah. I guess you could say we had fun.
Chuckles: Nicholas really wanted to root for the Braves. They were, afterall, the Rich Men Braves. The music would periodically start "We Will, We Will Rock You" and the screen would show King Kong or dinosaurs from old B movies stomping their feet. Every time, Jonathon would search Fifths Third Field to see where the monsters were stomping. We could see the dancing Mudhens, why not King Kong?

Greetings from Pittsburgh

This past weekend we flew up for a weekend in Maine. More on that later. Yesterday we started our midwest driving trip. You'llhave to pardon my typing since this is all on the laptop and my usually bad typing will only be worse.

Tuesday, August 2: We left my parents' house about 8:45 a.m. and drove into the DC to drop off our passports to attain visas for Togo. Wish us luck. Weeks ago the guy Ian talked to said it would be fine, yesterday the woman there says she sure hopes they get back in time. We have the last week in August to butt heads if need be.
By 10 a.m. we were back on the road to Pittsburgh and made it without incident by 2:30 to Station Square, a hot tourist spot in town with a great view of the city skyline across the river. Freight trains pass every 15 minutes and a choreographed water fountain soaks bystanders every 15 minutes. The kids promptly were drenched from head to toe, fully dressed. (I'm really hoping this morning their shoes are wearable, at least for breakfast.) We split a couple brownie sundaes in the Hard Rock Cafe, then climbed into the 1945 Ducks for a Pittsburgh tour by land and sea. My favorites tour notes were about the buildings. Because Pittsburgh was created as a blue collar steel and coal town, one of the buildings was created from sheets of steel that the builders -wanted- to rust as it provided a tough protective layer against the elements. Another building was built from aluminum, another had glazed terra cotta that rinses clean with every rain (unlike sandstone that soaks up all the pollution filth from the air). And the "wall street" of Pittsburgh is a glass island castle. Pictures are easier to explain that one.
Once we switched to boat mode, all the kids on board were given the opportunity to steer the boat. Of course each one wanted to go their own direction, Nicholas wanted to turn the boat around, but our captain kept a steady eye on our path.
After our tour we ate at Joe's Crab Shack. The food was OK, the decor was not so great (lots and lots of plastic children's toys hanging from the ceiling and attached to the walls) and it was really loud. Both Ian and I came out thinking yet again that restaurants simply give out too much food. The size of the people here in Pittsburgh is a testament to that as well. Ian asked if I wasn't hungry, but I'd eaten plenty... and only 1/3 of the dish. It is wasteful, I know. Next time I need to make a better choice. Do any places still offer 1/2 portions?
So now we're at our temporary home, the Embassy Suites, and today we'll be driving over to Toledo, OH. Just need to get the crew up, dressed and breakfasted.
Oh, a couple notes: If we'd had a full day, we would have played at the Carnegie Science Center, and taken the tram to the top of Mt. Washington (rated the 2nd best view in the nation, after the Painted Desert... by some magazine. Why do I find that hard to believe though?).