Blogs from Illinois, United States, North America - page 9

On the morning after the wedding, Sammi's parents hosted breakfast at the hotel. Besides recalling immediate highlights of last night's memorable event, it gave us another chance to see family before they began dispersing. We saw Don's great-nephew Ari as he approaches his third birthday this summer. We only previously saw him shortly after he was born at the previous Nadel family fete. His maternal grandfather Elliot Francke gave us the book he wrote and published "Upon a Time: The Darkness behind the Tales". This unusual medieval mystery is an interesting story and we await the sequel. Ari's parents Russ and Tara and his aunt Fran had to leave soon after breakfast. We knew that as teachers Russ and Fran had to get home before Monday classes. However some bad news made their departure even more ... read more

Today was a relatively lazy day. After a late breakfast we visited with a few of the family. With the arrival of Lee, all four brothers were together for the first time in years. We wandered out with Caroline but did not stray too far from the hotel in the cold wind. We found a vegetarian sandwich bar which the three of us enjoyed. It got dark relatively early. That is not unusual for winter time in Chicago! For kabbalat shabbat we debated going to shul or staying in our hotel room. We had found the local synagogue when walking around town, and it was not very far away. So despite the cold and possibly wet evening, we decided to join the community for bringing in shabbat We were glad we went to the Chicago Loop ... read more

After months of planning we were off to the US for the family wedding of Don's nephew Ben. Chicago is the home of bride Sammi and groom Ben, and Sammi's parents too. We were excited because this would be the first gathering of Don's family in two-and-a-half years, as well as meeting Sammi for the first time. We elected to fly British Airways in order to fly together with Caroline from London. We met up at Heathrow airport and boarded the BA flight to Chicago. Considering the London to Chicago flight was 11 hours, we figured to spend a bit of time on the plane chatting with Caroline. As it turned out, Lesley and Caroline were often awake or asleep at opposite times. Ultimately there was a bit of mother and daughter time before landing. As ... read more

Another day of travel and another day closer to home. We left Missouri when we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois and drove most of the way across the state before settling up camp near Champaign, Illinois. When I pulled into the campground and opened the camper door I got yet another discouraging surprise. The steps are supposed to come out when you open the door but they did not and they will not. I crawled under to investigate and I lubricated all the joints and banged on things. I didn't see anything bent or stuck and all the wires are intact. I checked the fuses and circuit breakers but nothing was wrong, so that's about it as far as a road fix goes, unless a brilliant idea occurs to me. We went out for supper ... read more

The drive from Buffalo was a long and pretty boring one. You don't see many international tourists when you stop on the highway service areas here. This is one serious drive, starting with Upper New York State, than the North-West of Pennsylvania followed by crossing Ohio and Indiana to finally end in Illinois. We also drive actually pretty close to Michigan. The road follow for a while Lake Erie, but we actually never saw it! If you want to park in downtown Chicago, be ready to pay up to 65usd per night...just to park your car! Hotels in Chicago are actually relatively cheap if you compare the rates to New York, but that parking fee would kill it. So we are simply staying next to O'hare airport....and are not charged for letting our little Mustang sleep ... read more