The Blog: Laments From La Mancha

Pardon my lack of finishing off this trip, I was kinda of interrupted by a trip to Madison (posting to come shortly) and catching back up with work after being out of the office for two weeks.

In any case, let’s see… where were we? Oh yes, Chicago II: The Revenge – Day Four & Five (I can tell that’s where I am by looking up at the title… rather clever if I do say so myself).

So, we all woke rather refreshed in the morning (the boys having survived sleeping in the same sofa bed). We got around and headed down stairs to catch the free shuttle to the Field Museum (of course we all know that nothing in life is ever really free, there’s always that unstated yet expected tip). The trip was pleasant (considering a growing number of cross streets were being closed off) and we found ourselves on the backside of the building. Well I guess it could be the front side, but either way, its the side not facing Lake Michigan (MICHIGAN! – sorry, Eddie Money flash back).

Once again, go City Pass! An easy in and out of line and suddenly we found ourselves standing face to face with Sue. For those of you who don’t don’t know, Sue (or Sam, the gender is unknown in all honesty) is “the world’s largest, most complete and most famous T. rex.” I can’t speak for the boys, but I thought it was pretty stinking cool. (I did get a pretty good shot of Dafyd by himself looking at Sue which I am currently using as my background on my MacBook – True Story, so I am sitting in a session in Madison and I open my MacBook and a row of ladies behind me piped up, ‘Oh nice dinosaur’ [so much for computer privacy] ‘Yeah, that Sue’ [Insert meaningless conversation about them being from Chicago, etc.]).

From there we moved on down stairs to get some brunch.

Of course nothing says “Chicago” like McDonalds. But then again they are 9 & 11, so I am going to let it slide this time. Since we were already on the lower level of the museum, we decided to take a look around. We decided to snap a few shots of the Man Eater from Mfuwe
(which I read about in this really cool book called the Ghosts of Tsavo which is all about man eating lions of the reason and what might cause it – good stuff), and of “The Bushman” before heading into ancient Egypt.

It was in the Egyptian displays that I really started to notice the differences between our experience the day before and what we were currently having. The Field Museum is a lot less hands on and a lot more ephemeral. I think the boys enjoyed looking at the exhibits, but they were still having a difficult time grasping the realities of the artifacts, and what value they might have an 11 year old. Despite all of this, they were enjoying themselves pretty well and we drug Michelle through at a much quicker pace than she would have liked.

I do believe that they were getting a better grip on the concept of “history” than they had before we walked in.

We finished out the lower level and took the elevator to the top floor to see the dinosaurs. (After making quick stops in the jade & gem displays and the little boys room)

Honestly, you can’t go wrong with boys and bones. Despite Dafyd occasionally saying, that’s not real and evolution never happened, we had a great time looking at monsters from the past. One of my personal nightmareish monster was the Irish Deer. That thing just looked awesome. I wanted to enter into a discussion about Christians and dinosaurs at this point, but honestly I don’t have the energy for it. To quote the great Python, “But look at the bones man…”

The fellas were kinda running out of steam, so we headed back down to stairs to take one look at the Lions of Tsavo (which promoted another good discussion with Dafyd and the promises to watch the movie when we got home) and head out the doors.

Wow was it warm in Chicago. I’m still a little shocked how different our weather experience was from the week before. In any case we made our way across the plaza and on to Shed Aquarium. Wholly freakin’ line Batman! As we approached there was a line running out the front doors, down the front stairs (which was more than a few steps) and down the side walk. No way in heck I was going to wait in that line.

Yeah City Pass!

With a sneer and an inflated sense of being more awesome than they, we headed up the right side of the stairs, right into the doors and blamo, in to Shed in less than 3 minutes (it probably took longer to climb the stairs then it did to get admission to the aquarium.

I’m sure I’m a little biased, but Shed did nothing for it. It was cramped (and I mean super cramped – as in you couldn’t see the display cases through all the people and the strollers), smelly and just an all around feel of dirty. Ugh. Dad was not having a good time. We pressed through the throng, headed down stairs to get a drink (what a nightmare in and of itself), grabbed a dirty table to let the boys rest their feet and contemplated our plan of attack.

We decided to hit the lower display areas because those were the aspects of the Detroit Zoo & Mandalay bay that we most enjoyed. Bad idea. The tanks were cloudy and virtually empty. We got a glance at some baloga whales but honestly that was about it. After being inside for about 45 minutes, we cried, “no joy,” and made a break for it.

Our plan was to take a speed boat ride that afternoon, so we slathered the boys in sunscreen (to avoid the burning that I took the week before) and caught a water taxi to Navy Peer. To say that they crammed the taxi full would be an understatement, but between that and the rougher waters, by the time we got to the Peer, the last thing Dafyd wanted to do was ride on a speed boat. I tried to explain to him that everyone would have their own seat, we’d be facing forward and it would be alot of fun, he still declined. So rather than make my child miserable, we grabbed a Chicago style hot dog (which Dafyd passed on too, which makes me think that he really wasn’t feeling to well), and caught a cab back to the hotel.

After about a 45 minute to an hour soak in the tub (Dafyd is like his dad in that he loves the tub), Dafyd was looking and acting more like himself. Jace followed suit, and after a relaxing couple of hours watching some cartoons we made our way back towards downtown and went to dinner at the Rain Forest Café.

The boys had a great time and enjoyed their second mixed drinks of the journey (complete with flashing cups), and we enjoyed the large fish tanks that we missed earlier in the day.

After dinner we hit Walgreens for some needed supplies and Chicago t-shirts and headed back to the hotel to close out a great trip.

In the morning we headed home (the city was on the verge of nuts). The trip back was good (we have some bladder control issues, but nothing that couldn’t be addressed). We did see an over turned semi, so that was kind of exciting.

All in all, an amazing time was had by all.

I hate Nazis. Not just the German asswhipes from WWII, but those folks who take it upon themselves to enforce arbitrary things beyond their power.

Case in point, Hawthorn Suites offers a free breakfast bar. No where in any of the printed materials did I have a clear time of when the thing ended. So after getting the boys around and then getting down stairs it was 9:05 (which really isn’t too bad if you think about the fact that they were up until 11:00). So I sat the boys down and started putting together some breakfast plates for them.

As I was getting ready to pour some juice for them when this staff guy comes up.

Nazi: “No, no, no… no, no… no, no” (Think Apu from the Quiki*Mart)
Me: “What?”
N: “Buffet closes at 9:00” (taps a sign on the wall)
M: “Yeah, but its 9:05 and all this food is there”
N: “Buffet closes at 9:00” (taps a sign on the wall)
M: “You’re kidding me right?”
N: “Buffet closes at 9:00”

Asswhipe Nazi freakin’ bastard scum.

So we with much disgust for Hawthorn Suites we headed back upstairs loaded up the Bellman’s Cart that I kept in the room the night before, loaded the Pilot and headed to Chicago proper.

Now because of expert planning, we had determined that the first place we needed to go was the Museum of Science and Industry. It was the farthest from the hotel, and we had time to kill before we could check in. So a quick 40 minutes later we found ourselves in the lower level of the Museum in waiting in line to purchase a City Pass.

A City Pass is a book of coupons for admission into various museums and attractions that you buy in advanced and avoid longer lines later (which REALLY came in handy later). Plus you save money, and I like to do that.

Our first stop was to find something to eat (thank you buffet nazi). We located the café, snagged some food stuff and got the boys from cranky to content.

And then we started to wander.

I have to say in advance that of all the museums we visited, this one was the best laid out for kids and I believe that the boys enjoyed the most. The first thing we were greeted with upon exiting the elevator was a giant sign that said, “POO TO POWER.”

I knew that I was in the right place.

I snapped a few “interesting” photos (as you can or at least will see) and Dafyd and Jace dove right in.

The thing that I found most fascinating was their overwhelming compulsion to push every button and twist every nob. I couldn’t get them to read a sign, but man did they turn those cranks.

Most of what we saw is a blur (sorry Autumn, I don’t have quite the strong recollection as I did with Indiana Beach) because of the fact that there was so much to see. The real highlight of the visit had to be the tour through the U-505 German sub (see how I planted the idea of the Germans at the very beginning of this blog only to turn around and bring them back into the conversation later – I’m an awesome story teller and I totally planned all that – no for real… honest).

While we waited in line we had a chance to speak with an awesome security guard who was a WWII buff and answered every question the boys could through at them about the sub, how it was captured, how many torpedoes it could carry, were there any “booby-traps”, you name it. The sub itself was much different than I recalled it. Most of that had to do with the fact that they’ve since moved the sub and built a building around it since I saw it as a child. It was well worth the extra $5 (each) it cost for the tour.

We visited a lot of other things and a good time was had by all (and we got some great shots of the boys – which is all I really cared about).

From there we packed back up in the Pilot and headed off to the Essex Inn.

As has become a common pattern with my travel recently (like what happened to me in Madison yesterday), the room wasn’t ready.

We left the bags with the Bellman and headed off to the restaurant that was attached to the hotel to grab some more grub. The waiter was awesome and we had a nice relaxing time of just hanging out with the boys.

By the time we were finished, the room was ready and we headed up stairs.

Dafyd wasn’t as thrilled with this room as we were with the other (and I have to agree with him). He wasn’t thrilled that they were sleeping in a pull out bed, and Michelle wasn’t thrilled with the one bathroom, and I wasn’t thrilled that the bathroom, sink area was smaller than an outhouse.

But such is life.

I know that I’ve toted a lot about my excellent planning, but it turns out that there were a few things I didn’t plan for. The first and the most major one was that Lollapalooza was taking place in Grant Park right outside the front door of hotel. Toss in filming for Batman and a convention that was just ending, and the fact that it was in the mid 90’s and Chicago was a very warm busy place.

We unpacked, made a few phone calls, and then strapped on our sandals and caught a cab.

One of the big selling points of Chicago for the boys was the fact that they got to go to the LEGO store. (I think it’s the only reason they wanted to go honestly, the rest was just fluff), and I had to make sure that we got that taken care of right away. So we caught our first Chicago cab and headed uptown to see how much damage we could do on Dad’s credit card. (I did make the mistake of cramming us all into the back seat, but I quickly fixed that for future trips).

To say that the boys loved it, would be an understatement. It was just freaking cool. LEGO building blocks rock the house! We took a ton of pictures.

Instead of catching a cab right home we decided to walk the mile-ish back to give the boys a feel for the city and what city life is all about. We saw some exciting street performers, and had a great discussion about people begging and when and how to help people on the street (some we gave some money too – street performer guy, and some we didn’t – the guys just begging). It was a very good learning opportunity.

With a little complaining and a lot of sweating and a few sore feet, we made it back safely and went to bed tired and loving Chicago.

* Pictures to follow when I’m not in the middle of an exciting session.

There’s something to be said about sleeping in your own bed.

By my very nature I’m not much of a sleeper. I don’t do it all that well. It should come as now great shock that I’m a little odd. I don’t use a pillow in the traditional way. I use a small blanket (which I travel with) as my pillow, and then I use a pillow to hold (I know, I’m strange).

Toss all of that into the fact that I’m 6’ 3” and sleeping can be a task. To really make things interesting, I flip and flop like a fish out of water so I require a lot of room to make the sleeping experience. A queen sized bed doesn’t accomplish that very well.

All that is to say that the night time portion of our trip to Mom & Dad’s wasn’t as successful or relaxing as the day time portion.

Dafyd spent the morning taking pictures with the digital camera (since he exhausted his disposable one the night before) so we have the token butt shot of Jace and a whole slew of other interesting things. At one point he thought it was the coolest thing to take pictures of the ceiling fan because the fan was moving, the picture caught the blades in motion. But it was slow paced and relaxing.

Which is in dire opposition to the trip we took to Schamburg.

I always have this idea that its better to not have to pay to use the road system and who needs to buy map when I have google. Sometimes that’s not always a good idea. For whatever reason the ride north was horrible.

LONG.

Very long. Nearly four hours in fact (which is a bit of shocker, because we’d already driven 2 hours west, surely we should have saved some time). By the end of the trip we were all car sick, irritable, and in desperate need to pee (with the exception of Dafyd who required an emergency pit stop along side Illinois 83. But all that having been said, to quote the great Jace Robert, “We didn’t die.”

We decided to stay this part of our journey at the Hawthorn Suites, which turned out to be a pretty okay place. It wasn’t upscale (no marble floors or anything), but it was certainly a step above Motel 6. By far one of the coolest things is that it was an actual suite. We had a common “living area”, but Michelle and I had our own room and bathroom, and so did the boys (which they thought was the coolest thing in the whole world – man, give an 11 year old power of his own remote and he is in heaven).

After a short layover, we packed back into the Pilot and trekked over to Medieval Times.

I won’t bore you with the sword fighting, the eating food with your fingers, the lances shattering and all that good stuff, let me simply say that the boys had an awesome time and everyone slept well that evening.
* Pictures to follow when I’m not in the middle of an exciting session.

* As a site note, apparently you cannot click the save and continue editing button while using the GoSpell checking because it toasts your whole FREAKIN’ POST

Take two.

So after all the planning, packing, and sitting around in sunglasses and underwear, it was time to load the Pilot and see if this bad dog could chew a bone. The Soulliere family vacation had begun.

[Gallery not found]
Sorry, too lazy right now to edit these correctly, enjoy none the less

Leg one of our trip takes us to Buffalo, IN (why haven’t you been to this mecca of the mid-west yet) and onto to Monticello to hang out at Indiana Beach. The saying goes that half the fun of getting there is the journey. Having traveled more than once, I can assure that this is most often not the case. To help make my traveling as pain free as possible I’m always printing off maps from Google to make sure I can find my way with the greatest of ease (I used to use FreeTip.com, but man, its Google right?). Lately though I am becoming increasingly disappointed with them (I’m as surprised as you are, I had not idea that I’d ever have anything bad to say against the Wal*Mart of the Internet). This leads me to my most recent mini-rant (honestly, did you think you’d get through a post without one – if I could just find someone to pay me to sit around all day and complain I’d totally have it made).

What happened to Google? Their directions used to be simple, concise and easy to use. Recently though I am getting 15 pages of directions to go 2 miles. Take a “slight left” (their words not mine) for .002 feet swerve right and continue on to Some New Ave turning left on Some Other New Ave Which is Really the Same Road as the First Ave and finally merge onto A Totally New Ave, Not. Whatever happened to take US 24 to US 39, turn right? It was even worse driving from Buffalo to Schaumburg, IL.

Google Maps aside, we did manage to find our way out of the drive way and head off down US 24. I have to confess that I was over joyed at what a pleasant drive US 24 was. It turns out that Indiana has some hills, trees and a beautiful country side. Toss in a few more pine trees and it was like we were driving through northern Michigan. Very light traffic, double lanes, and an eyeful of relaxation.

We did learn that Indiana is really the gateway to the world. No joke. Here we are zipping along the highway when suddenly we were confronted with a two huge signs spanning 4 lanes at this massive intersection. Peru turn left. Mexico turn right. Yeah, totally, who knew? I though Mexico would have been left from Indiana too, but it would appear that I was wrong. Needless to say, this got quite a few on going chuckles.

Speaking of on going chuckles, the day before Michelle and I were doing some channel surfing and came across an aged Eddie Money performing a concert in Detroit (in HD of all things). Eddie wasn’t looking so well (despite the fact that this was taped in 2004), with a stroke like grin he muddle through some of his lyrics (I couldn’t understand a thing he was saying and I was pretty sure I knew most of the songs) I mean it was worse than Ozzy (while the man cannot carry on a verbal conversation, he can still articulate all of his lyrics). So aside from forgetting 72% of his words, he’d randomly shout out “Michigan” every 3 minutes or so. To really make things interesting he would (mid-song) point out that he was coming back in August next year. He finished up his concert by handing a buxom blond in the front row his mic and walking away while she stood there looking completely lost (but hey, turns out she new as many of the words as he did). He did a few more “la, la’s”, shouted “Michigan” and then thanked everyone for what a great time he had. I would have totally been pissed if I had paid a dime for that show.

But one of the keys to enjoying life and making the most of things like Eddie money is taking those shared moments of absurdity and bring them back at a later point.

So in the middle of nowhere and the silence of the Peru / Mexico joking had ended, I shouted out “Michigan” (raising my hands above my head) and solicited an honest to God snort from my wife with a few tears tossed in (truuuuuue story). Life is good.

The miles passed, the laughter continued and we made our way onto Buffalo. I have to poke a little bit a my mom here, but in her giving her directions on how to get to her house, she went out of her way to mention several times that we had to make sure that we stayed on US 24 and didn’t accidentally go through Logans Port. The way she carried on was that someone how Logans Port was the ghetto of Indiana and it should be avoided at all cost (“You don’t want to drive through there…”). No offense is meant to the fine citizens of Logans Port, I’ve personally never visited your fine Port (along the Wabash – pronounced wab-ish, like silly wabbit, or at least that’s the way I did it the whole trip), but I am sure it’s a fine place to be.

All that having been said we made it safely to my parents house, enjoyed a lunch of pizza and tacos (I love grandparents – what do your boys like to eat – you know kids, they like pizza and tacos and that kind of stuff [Oh, TOTAL aside... driving down 83 North in Illinois and we passed a "Payless Taco" - two words you don't want to see together], so what do they get – both] and then headed back down the road to Indiana Beach.

The slogan goes, “Proving once again that there is more than corn in Indiana”. This is belied by the fact that you have to drive through 37 miles of corn to get there. That fact aside, I was very impressed with IB. I had no expectations, so as you might imagine, they were totally surpassed and the place was a lot of fun.

No stress, no to extremely short rides, nice breeze of the lake, it was wonderful. After the boys stopping to make thorough use of their cameras (pictures of signs, maps, each other and anything else they could find) we got our wrist bands and were off to the park.

The first ride that caught the boys attention was the Sea Dragon (or the Viking Ride as Dafyd calls it). The ran right up the ramp and headed to the ends to sit down and Michelle and I sat in front of them and we took off. Now for those of you who’ve never been on the Sea Drago aka Viking Ride, it’s basically a large ship that swings like a pendulum from bow to stern getting higher each time. Laughter EXPLODED from the back as Dafyd was having the time of his life.

Jace on the other hand was curled into the smallest space he could find eyes shut and knuckles white and a look of having eaten spoiled 100 year old egg on his face.

Dafyd: “That was the BEST RIDE ever”
Jace: “I hated that ride. It was horrible. The next time I ride on it, I’m going to ride in the middle.”

This turned out to be the most popular ride of the day as we road on it more than half a dozen times (several of them in a row, and we even managed to drag Grandpa Bob onto it a couple of times).

From there we made our ways to one of the greatest rides ever invented for a kid – the antique cars.

Jace (who was very serious in his responsibilities) got to play driver to Grandma & Grandpa and Dafyd bouncing from side to side got to take Michelle and I around. They both did awesome, Dafyd showing a lot of wisdom an maturity as he made some excellent decisions once the cars got a little backed up. A lot of fun was had by all.

Next we caught the Viking Ride again and then made our way over to the Shafer Queen for a river boat ride down to the dam and back. The boys had a great time. Jace and I finished the ride up top (which provided to be hotter, but a lot quieter). Nature called, we answered and the boys caught site of Hurricane.

The Hoosier Hurricane is the large wooden roller coaster there at the park. So again, we loaded up in the back (Michelle riding with thrill seaker Dafyd and me taking the very back with Jace to ensure that he felt safer on this ride) and took off. Have I mentioned how much I hate wooden roller coasters? Yeah, I forgot too, but this certainly reminded me. Nothing like having your body jarred around violently for two minutes over rough passage. Give me smooth steel any day of the week. Internal bleeding and $20 on drinks aside, we moved on.

Jace caught sight of the bumper cars and had to go on them. For some reason, Dafyd wasn’t thrilled with the idea so Michelle (who’s a car nut in any fashion) decided to take one for Team Soulliere and join Jace in line. Out of all the rides, this one was the only one that didn’t go so well. Jace had a hard time figuring out the mechanics of the car once it got hit and stuck and spent almost his entire ride in the corner. Michelle seemed to have a good kid taking out small children, but Jace called “no joy”.

Viking Ride (again)
Jace: “Well I didn’t die, but I think I almost passed out.”

It was time for a short break so Grandma & Grandpa & Michelle caught some shade while the boys and I headed over to the Scrambler. Having explained the physics of centripical force to Jace, he dided to take the inside of the cart while I took the outside.

Slamming ensued.

Jace tossed his hands out shouting, “I’m letting myself go” (slam into dad) “look at me, I’m not holding on” (slam into dad) (repeat).

Dafyd continued to grin ear to ear every time we caught sight of him and a smilely time was had by all.

The boys decided it was time for them to head off and try something on their own took a ride on the Paratrooper (I love universally recognized carnival ride names) and had such a good time, they decided that Dad should ride on it with them again (and so he did).

Right next to the Viking Ride (which I believe we rode again) was Frankenstine’s Haunted House. Both the boys decided that they simply had to go on it (so another $5 later off they went). I sat outside and waited…. and waited…. and waited. After about 5 minutes I saw Jace come streaking out, running right past me and over to base camp. No Dafyd. So I waited… and waited… Finally I saw Dafyd emerge from the exit and asked him what was up.

Dafyd: “I lost Jace. I think he’s dead. Dad, I was totally freaking out in there.”
Jace: “I saw a sign that said, ‘Chicken Exit’ so I took it.”

Toss in the “Swings”, a ride on the “Double Drop” another Viking Ride and we were almost done.

The last ride of the day for us was to pile the whole family into the “Rocky Rapids” log ride. I bought the picture and will scan it for your enjoyment as well as ours.

An awesome time was had by all, and it was certainly well worth the drive there.

Yet our day didn’t quite end there. A trip to Burger King for dinner (Grandma decided that it was most likely easier to do that than cook burgers – which after having made pizza and tocos, I totally agreed) and we were back in Buffalo.

Grandpa Bob gave us a tour of the church where he preaches an Jace gave us an example of how you preach with an “Iron Fist” – I guess I’m going to have to better check where Kara takes them to church on Sunday mornings (I kid, I kid).

We ended the day with Cinema Soulliere as I busted out some of my traveling technology to share in a family movie. Out came the MacBook, the projector and a pair of firewire powered speakers (which had awesome sound) and we enjoyed an evening of watching “Evan Almighty” which turned out to be a really good movie. I liked it a lot, and Grandma & Grandpa seemed to have a good time.

As I closed out the thoughts of the day in my head I realized that for the first time in many days I was relaxed and content as the echos of laughter still bounced around in my brain. It was a great first day and the boys did awesome (and Dad did a pretty good job too if I might say so myself).

* Pictures to come as I crop and post them.