Chicago, ILLINOIS to Ann Arbor, MICHIGAN

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We were up early around 8.00am and got ourselves organised to start our road trip. First order of business was to get some breakfast and during our orientation walk of Chicago yesterday we came across a couple of places on South Michigan Avenue that looked OK so we went to this place a couple of blocks from our hotel called the Artists Café. One thing I noticed about Chicago that surprised me was how it is set up for cold weather. They generally have two sets of doors to get into buildings so the cold can stay out and in this café they had a section in the corner with something like 30 coat hangers like you have in a wardrobe. Look weird and then it dawned on me during winter everyone is probably layering up with warm jackets they take off when they are inside somewhere that is warm.

Given we were in USA we had a multicultural breakfast with Elise having some french toast, Kerry had a greek yoghurt and I had an English breakfast which was scrambled eggs on a muffin. We then went back to the hotel to check out and grab our bags and get a taxi for the short trip to the Avis car rental depot about 6 blocks away. A bit of a wait to get our car but soon enough we were in the basement trying to get settled into our shiny white Chevrolet Impala which had about 3800 miles on the odometer. We set up the phone with google map instructions and the new Tom Tom Go 620 we bought as well with guidance on how to get out of downtown Chicago and we were on our way. It was about 11am by the time we left and the weather was fine and forecast to be about 35 degrees today.

I was glad we had two GPS devices as the Tom Tom had some trouble getting oriented. It had a 3d image of the buildings in a big city and they just kept spinning around ! Soon enough both devices wanted me to go different ways so I made a choice to trust google maps on the iphone for starters. Stayed off the interstate highway for a while to get used to steering the car on the left-hand side whilst driving on the right hand side. Soon enough I was on the I90-I94 East heading towards Gary, Indiana birthplace of Michael Jackson. State number 34 ticked off.

It was pretty easy driving on the Interstate but whilst I was driving at the speed limit everyone else was going about 10-20 miles per hour faster. We had intentionally programmed both devices to avoid toll roads not so much because we wanted to save money but you have no idea what the costs are and how they need to be paid etc, so we avoided them and went different routes to see more towns on the way. Our first stop today was recommended by our good friends Michelle & Dave to go the Indiana State Dunes. We pulled into a Tourist Information Centre and met a chap named Dennis Penning who was so helpful in giving is some guidance about the area’s history. We drove along the shores of Lake Michigan and found some nice homes and eventually the huge sand dunes. Dennis had told us that when the wind picks up coming across Lake Michigan they have had waves as high as 22 feet (they get lower when hitting the shore due to sand banks) and explains how the sand dunes were formed. Nor far from the dunes we arrived in Michigan City and I started the Spotify playlist I had created for the road trip. It has 65 songs all titles with towns / cities we are visiting and this one is a classic Johnny Cash edition with the chorus “Howdy Doo Michigan City”. Next stop was in North East Indiana where they have a large Amish population. We stopped at a town called Middlebury for lunch. It was about 1.5 hours from the dunes so we were ready for a stop. We went to this place called Das Dutchmann Essenhaus a quaint but large restaurant serving up traditional Amish fare. We all had home-made soup for lunch and Elise & Kerry shares some mozzarella sticks

We drove a bit further into Amish country towards Shipshewana, and started seeing plenty of horse and buggies driving around. We pulled into a Dollar General store to get some supplies of water and snacks and an Amish family pulled up in their buggy to do their grocery shopping, how authentic! It was here we exhibited our first look at Fireworks for sale (only after passing what seemed like about 150 fireworks warehouses on the drive so far!). We then went to the Blue Gate Restaurant simply for desert. We could easily have done that in Middlebury but wanted another Amish experience. When we got there we looked around a gift shop next door which had lots of beautiful home wares and then we went to the restaurant, and they were fully booked so we had to go the bakery take away area and Elise ordered a Banana Cream Pie and I had a Blueberry Pie to eat later tonight.

We then continue on our journey and soon we crossed the border into Michigan USA State number 35 and out third state in one day! We drove over Kalamazoo River. I have lots of great songs about Kalamazoo on my playlist but my favourite is one by Pamela Chappell with some interesting lyrics. Our destination tonight is Ann Arbor which is a University town. It was getting late and we decided to head into downtown for dinner before checking into our hotel and we had been told at the Blue Gate that we must visit the Zingerman’s Deli in Detroit Street. Well that was some challenge as there were one way roads with some closures and detours so we went round and round a few times before we found it.

We placed our orders. Kerry had a Knish pastry with potato and chicken inside, Elise had the Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad and I ordered Louie’s Lunch Box # 19 (without fully reading the ingredients – read on). Whilst we were waiting for our meals to take back to our room we had some free samples of different breads and they were unbelievably good and justifies the reputation this place has as one of America's best deli's. The receipt revealed two interesting things. First it was actually 9.16pm when we ordered which is way too late for dinner, and secondly they got Kerry’s name wrong when she ordered as they put her name as Karry. Now that might sound like much but when I picked up the order this guy asked me if my name was Larry and I could not figure why he would ask me that until later when I read the name of in the receipt. I clearly did not look like a Karry! We drove back through downtown and it’s a beautiful town with some grand old university buildings and it took around 15 minutes to get to our hotel the Comfort Inn & Suites University South. About 10 minutes after we arrived we got hit by a mini tornado that was ferocious and we were glad we were not outside. We ate our dinner in the room, and one bite in to Louie’s Lunch Box and my mouth exploded. The ingredients were roast beef, Vermont cheddar cheese, lettuce whole grain mustard on a grain roll. Everything was good except the word “mustard”. How can I describe what happened next I was kind of jumping around like a frog in the room as if that was going to help the burning sensation. Gulped down a few bottles of water, and tried my best to get as much of this mustard off the roll as I could so I can eat something but it didn’t really help, and I battled through gainfully. I did have my blueberry pie we bought earlier in the day for desert but I think my taste buds were destroyed by the mustard so it was hard to enjoy it. I will take care next time to fully read the ingredients. Lesson learned. It has been a long day, we started pretty late and with all the stops we made, we are here a lot later than envisaged but it was a nice day and some unique experiences were had.

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Photos

Thermometer in Artists Cafe
Notice the range in temperatures from -60 to 120. This is Chicago !

Welcome to Michigan City, Indiana
Great Johnny Cash song !