Eat Well; Travel Often: Day 5

Day 5: 5/21/15 (Mason to Somewhere in Wisconsin via Indianapolis, New Buffalo, MI and Chicago)

552 miles

We couldn’t sleep in this morning because we had a long day of traveling planned, though at least we woke up to the smell of bacon! Tara was cooking breakfast for Collin and a few of his friends because they had final exams so we got to reap the benefits. We packed up the car, said our goodbyes, and by 8:40am we were on the road to Indianapolis. About half way there we realized we left a few things back in the fridge – but hey Aldrich family – feel free to eat the cheese spread. It should be gluten free! As for the cake truffles, you probably want to throw those out (Rico ate half of each, leaving the other half for me). Thank you guys for the hospitality! It was a great first family/friend stop! Oh yeah, we wanted to let John (Dad) know that our message on the lampshade is gone. We were going to drive over to Kentucky and search for ourselves, but Jake said they redid the whole place L

Our stop in Indy was very brief. Our route was practically going through the city anyways so we popped in to the Hard Rock Café to pick up more drumsticks. We actually left Ohio about an hour later because the Café didn’t open until 10am (you’re welcome Sean!). I guess all the Indy 500 fans hadn’t arrived yet because we didn’t hit much traffic coming in. One guy at a gas station actually asked if we were there for race because we were so far from home.

On our drive to New Buffalo, we passed a HUGE wind farm. There had to be hundreds of wind turbines. They lined both sides of the highway and went on for as long as we could see – and Indiana is pretty flat so it was for a while. This pitstop was also solely to pick up drumsticks (you’re welcome again, Sean). It was about an hour detour, but hey, what’s an hours’ worth of driving when you’re planning to drive around 10 hours anyway. We figured it was a short way out of the way and we could add another state to the list! The town was just over the border though so we’re kind of cheating. We would have gone further up into Michigan if there was a giant bridge across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin, but there’s not and we didn’t have the time.

The drive into to Chicago wasn’t too bad – we were expecting much worse traffic due to it being Memorial Day weekend. The only bad part was paying 6 different tolls getting in and out of the city. Like what? Who lives there and pays that!? We parked a bit impulsively, but it ended up working out because it was pretty close to all the places we wanted to visit. Our first stop was the donut shop, Glazed and Infused which was a short walk away. Rico ended up getting an Indian Pale donut which had crushed hops dusted over the top and Jillian got a Black Raspberry Cheesecake donut. Next we walked through Millennium Park which is the home to the infamous Cloud Gate or “the bean”. After fighting through the crowd to snag a few good pictures we devised a plan to get to Goose Island Brewery.

Jillian finally took a classic handstand picture - so did Rico...

We decided to hop on the subway instead of driving since the thought of finding parking again was a nightmare. We rode the Red line to check out Wrigley Field (right by Goose Island), but we got off one stop before the field at Belmont Ave to visit Big and Little’s restaurant for lunch. This was one of the restaurants we had picked out from Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and it gives New Orleans a run for their money when it comes to po boys, at least nontraditional ones. We shared a BBQ pork belly po boy which was phenomenal. I think we’d eat that sandwich every day if only it wouldn’t clog our arteries. We ate on the way to Wrigley’s Field where we snapped a few photos before walking up the street to Goose Island Brewery and Restaurant. We popped in and ordered a flight of beers (Classic Goose IPA, The Muddy, The Cubby Blue, and the Fulton St. Blend). Our favorites were the Cubby Blue which was a Blueberry Ale and Fulton St. Blend which had the aroma and undertones of a cup of coffee. Afterwards, we got back on the subway to find some classic Chicago deep dish pizza closer to where we parked. We ended up a Giordano’s and ordered “The Special” which had sausage, onions, peppers, and mushrooms. The pizza had to be 2 inches tall and was sort of prepared upside-down. The toppings were on the bottom, followed by cheese then sauce – so different than NY style but delicious all the same! We walked back to the car while the pizza was being cooked and Jillian realized she didn’t have her credit card. Thank god it was at the pizza place when we went back to pick up our order! Our final stop in Chicago was to the Hard Rock Café where we picked up yet another pair of drumsticks. We drove as far as we could towards Minnesota and then pulled over at a rest stop to catch a few Z’s before heading back out in the morning.