Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 6: On the Road to SD (9/1/15)

Woke up early and packed up the car to head out towards Chamberlain SD. We stop in Janesville to go to a Woodmans market right off the highway to get some WI beers (New Glarus and Central Waters) and some local cheese.

Crossed the border to get some information and saw this. This is where we will be going tomorrow.

Stopped to get a glimpse of the infamous corn palace. All those murals and separators are all corn. 

If only Berry were here. He would have been able to meet a corny friend.

Trying to give a closer look at the murals on the outside of the corn palace. Can you see the different corns in there?

After a brief stop, we get back on the road and stop for lunch at a Culvers on the western border of the state. It is a local sourced fast food chain with many of the typical offerings (burger, chicken sandwich, milkshake/malt, etc.) with some other atypical offerings (cheese curds, green beans, reuben melt). We enjoy our meals and then head back on the road continuing our venture west. We get into SD and the visitor people are very helpful and friendly and knowledgeable. We continue west and stop in Mitchell which has the worlds only corn palace which has some cool corn murals on the sides. After that we head back out to get to our hotel in Chamberlain. We check in and head across the street to the pizza place there and have some tasty pizza with a couple drinks. Hang out on the bridge for a little bit and then head to bed.

This was our sunset view as we sipped on some wine and chatted with each other. Not too shabby :)

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 5: Last day in Chicago (8/31/15)

Woke up and made our way to the Field Museum of Natural History. Since it looked plenty big, we decided to not get the special exhibits and just explore the normal ones. Good decision. We explored for 2 hours before meeting up for a status check where we all decided we needed another hour and a half.

Old school looking building for a natural science museum. Winning!

The inside of this museum is stunning. Cant wait to explore around all the exhibits.

Even after that, probably could have spent another couple hours exploring as I got through most of the animal area, and most of the earth evolution area in that time. There was still a DNA section I wanted to look at as well as a few other permanent exhibits that would have been nice to see. Museum has tons of information and the evolution exhibit was pretty cool as it had fossils throughout of the different animals it was talking about which I thought was a nice touch. We wanted to see more, but we needed to go get food so we left and walked over to Gino's East pizza and got a Chicago Deep Dish pizza which was pretty good; the one down side was the 50-60 min wait for it to be made. However after the pizza, we railed it home to start getting things together for the trip out tomorrow as we waited for Mike to get home from work for one last get together. We head out to revolution brewery for dinner and drinks. They have some pretty good beers; a wit aged in Gin barrels, some decent pale ale types, and some pretty solid dark ales (stout and porter). The food was also pretty good, not the best I have had on this trip but definitely tasty with a wide range of options. After dinner, we headed back to the place to start packing stuff up and getting ready for the beginning of the actual road trip tomorrow.

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 4: Science and Reunion day (8/30/15)

Woke up and headed down to the Museum of Science and Technology after breakfast at the house. The museum is massive with plenty to see with the normal admission but other extra exhibit purchases available. So we get the normal admission with the Robot revolution admission to see the robot exhibit.

Soccer robots. I stayed and watched these guys kick the ball around longer than I should probably admit. hahah

Me and my hall of mirrors. 

Weather center. Learn about erosion, tornadoes, and a few other phenomena. To me it looked like a futuristic exhibit of sorts.

The tornado creator. You get to play with the velocity at the top and bottom and a few other factors to see how it affects the cyclone.

This place had a gigantic model train set with different regions. Dont think I have the patience for building model train sets but they are spectacular exhibits.

Evolution of the bicycle. Was interesting walking through this exhibit seeing how the wheels, frames, etc. have changed over the years. 

It is a pretty cool museum with plenty to see and do and we walk around until its our time to go into the  robot exhibit. I go into the submarine exhibit and learn a bit about the German U boats during WW2 before going into the robot exhibit. They had some cool robots, some of which played soccer, and then after that we went and explored the weather center and the math in nature area which had a mirror maze that I got lost in after finding the secret room. After walking around a little bit more, we head out to pick up Aunt Chris from the airport. After acquiring her, I get dropped off at Barcocina to meet up with Rina for some lunch and drinks which was very good (fried plantains on french toast?) before heading to HQ Beercadia which is a giant arcade with a good beer selection and amazing arcade games (tetris, MK 1-3, X-Men, TMNT, etc.) which are all free and in decent condition. After than, I get picked up and we head over to the Lagunitas Brewery for dinner and drinks. We walk into this giant warehouse (as big as soldier field) and they have charlie and the chocolate factory music playing as you walk through the entry way. Get to the tap room and get a flight to try their sour cherry beer as well as a few other staples, and look at the brewery real fast. They have 750 barrel fermenters, many of them. It is a huge place. Food is pretty good and we have a good time as it is a great place to hang out and enjoy some live music. Afterwards we head back to the place to lay low as tomorrow Mike has to work and we have some museum exploration to do tomorrow.

Coming off my trip to Japan, thought it was pretty cool that I found a machine that originally took 100Y coins. 

This was one of the walls at the arcade bar. Oh so many memories with some of these games. Awesome place!

West coast brewery setting up shop in Chicago. Such a tasty experience :)

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 3: Living with the consequences of our choices (8/29/15)

Woke up around 930am and was moving slowly after the previous night. We get ready and head downtown on the rail to have some brunch at Gage (one of the better eggs benedict I have had in recent memory) and then walked through the millennium and nearby parks.

These fountain towers (2 similar fountains with a gap between them) had videos and messages scrolling on them in the water. Fun way to stay cool in the summer I bet :)

Glad we came here. This city is kinda cool :)

I found the infamous bean of bean town :p . It is a fun art piece, especially the underside.

I would love to attend a show here at some point in the future. Seems like a great venue.

Skyline above the amphitheater. 

Interesting mix of old and new architecture throughout the skyline.

Nice view of the city streets of Chicago from our elevated walk

Family gang wandering around the city before the clouds open up on us.

Their planetarium sits on the water. Not a bad place to spend a day I imagine.

Such a large and beautiful fountain to sit by.

Chicago has its own version of ole faithful. Aint she purty!

This city does have some cool buidlings in its downtown area.

A little bit of Texas embedded in Chicago.

I do not remember where these guys were at but I saw a room full of penguins so naturally I had to take a pic.

Saw a cool fountain/water park with faces projected on the wall, then we went and looked at/inside the great bean of Chi-town, before checking out the wavy outdoor amphitheater which looked to be a great venue for summer concerts. After that we walked over to the Buckingham fountain and waited for the eruption (every hour on the hour). After we saw that, we walked over to the tribune building which was cool as they have carved out places for stones from buildings all over the world and embedded them in it, from the pyramids in Giza to the Berlin wall. After that we got in a cab back to the house as the rain was starting to come down but subsided by the time we got the cab. Once back at the house some people napped while I did some work on the computer. We hung out at the house all night as the weather outside was not conducive to going out. Just watched a movie had dinner.

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 2: Arriving in Chicago to see Mike (8/28/15)

Woke up and had breakfast at the hotel before packing up the car and heading out towards Chicago. Early in the day we crossed the Mississippi river and continued to see much of the farmland that makes up the Midwest (yesterday I noticed we grow a bit of rice and got to see the golden fields that I had been wanting to wait to see in Asia, so that was a pretty sight). We get into Chicago and cruise up Lakeshore drive road which is a nice road to be on. We meet Mike and unload the car. After getting everything in we get in a car and go to lunch at Hop leaf which has a great beer selection (didn't even look at the bottle list) and pretty good food. After some good local Pale Ales, we head back to the house for a little bit before heading out to Half Acre brewery. Have a few beers there ( their black ale, aka stout, and their flagship PA, both of which were good) before heading over to DryHop Brewery for another beer (a Belgian stout with peanut butter – interesting taste that wasn't bad, but also wasn't something I would drink a lot of) and some food (had really good mac and cheese and Mikes fried chicken looked pretty tasty as well). After that we met up some of his friends at sidetrack, a huge gay bar with a nice rooftop to drink on. I finally got to try the alcoholic root beer that recently made its way to Houston (its actually from WI) and it is exactly what it says it is – a good root beer with 6% abv. I joked with Mike that it was good that they made this cause now people can get diabetes and cirrhosis at the same time. After a couple drinks there, we bounced around to a couple different bars: a loud bar nearby with light bulb wave sculpture on the ceiling which was pretty cool, a karaoke bar a decent walk away with a bunch of people who could actually sing (most of them were singing songs from musicals), and finally a gay dance club where we stayed until ~330 or 4 am. Long day but was fun to hang with my cousin and his friends in their city.

Crinkly's Good Ole American Family Road Trip Day 1: On the road to Chi-town (8/27/15)

We wake up around 4am to get the car packed and get on the road. Drive through the day, stopping to get gas and lunch before stopping for the night in Sikeson, MO. We check into our hotel (Best Western) and relax a little bit before we head out for dinner. We head to Lambert's, the place that is known for its  throwed rolls. Yes they are known for throwing rolls across their restaurant.

Rural America. Definitely has its fair share of beauty.

About to go have some rolls thrown at us. Cant wait :)

We pull up to the place and it is a old western looking wood building with American flags draped in the front. We walk inside and its just a place stuck in old American times; It is one of those places that if you were to take a foreigner for their first visit, they would exclaim “This is exactly what I thought of when I envisioned America!”. Lots of old relics lining the periphery and old saloon music being played by a cute old lady on the piano. We get seated, and as we walk to our seats, we observe the circus that we have just walked into: a man throwing rolls across a giant room with almost pinpoint accuracy (it was actually pretty impressive the guy's range and accuracy), servers walking around with shared sides in giant vats (fried okra, macaroni and tomatoes?, etc.), and a clientele that makes you worry about the health of Americans in the near future. We sit down order our drinks, which come out in liter mugs, and then proceed to order our food. Having been out of the country for a while, it has been a while since I had one of my southern comfort food staples, chicken friend steak, so I got that while my parents got a ribeye and a pork steak. When my dad ordered the pork steak it made me chuckle as I was envisioning the scene from that Its Always Sunny episode where Charlie keeps trying to order a milk steak; I digress. We get our food, and their dishes come served in a skillet; literally these were steel skillets with handles and everything and they were not small – at least a foot wide. We had some rolls thrown our way and they are deceptively dense; I almost dropped mine as I underestimated the weight of these things. Food was good but my cornbread was pretty bland (which was disappointing as I was looking forward to that as much as the CFS). Today I also remembered one of the reasons I love being a southerner/Texan; the people. Seeing the cordial people with their thick southern accents interacting with each other in such a warm manner makes me immensely happy. After stuffing our faces with some southern grub, we head back to the hotel room where we all get to bed relatively early for my standards (~1030pm).