Politics, Politicians and Tornadoes

What, you may ask, does a tornado and a politician have in common?  I'll tell you.  It blows into town from nowhere, with high gusting winds, howling incessantly and spreading junk across every lawn and piece of waste ground in the neighborhood.  Sane people dive for cover when it comes into view, there are pieces of paper scattered all over the floor as it passes through, and it disappears again as quickly as it arrived, leaving everyone wondering exactly what happened - and why to them?  Tornadoes do pretty much the same thing.

Here in Illinois this week we had the pleasure of the Republican Party nomination roadshow coming to town, with 4 major candidates fighting it out to win the right to challenge Mr. Obama at the polls this coming November.  Funnily enough, only 2 of them decided to put up an appearance in Illinois to support their nomination bid - Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul did not campaign extensively here, preferring to spend their time in states they clearly think they have a better chance in.  It seems an alien concept to me to not even bother turning up.....

At the same time there was a lot of other local elections for State and local Congressional Seats, judges, Sheriff's and the like.  Wherever I went over the past 2 weeks I was confronted by someone who believed that they could do a better job than whoever was currently in the seat (or can continue to do a better job than those trying to unseat him, et al) - and wanting to tell me all about it whilst sticking yet another campaign leaflet into my hand so that I could remember his name later.  Between all these different candidates vying for the public's attention the local TV and Radio media moguls get an opportunity to feather their nests as everyone wants to make sure that their message is heard as loudly and often as possible (or that they can afford). Every time you turn the radio on there's another support group telling the world what a better place it's going to be just as soon as Peter Politician is elected to the grand stage.  It was very ironic that whilst all this politicking was going on around this great mid-western state, the former Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich was heading off to start a 14 year prison sentence for trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate Seat (along with 17 other corruption charges) - joining his predecessor George Ryan (Republican) to 'serve his country' in a Federal Penitentiary at the same time (although in different prisons;  Ryan in in Indiana whilst Blago is in Colorado).  We can now proudly profess at dinner parties around the world that Illinois not only has 2 former Governors currently 'serving', but Blago became the 4th former Governor of Illinois to be convicted of 'white collar crimes' since 1968.    



The interesting thing about the Primary season in particular is the way that the candidates take the greatest of pleasure kicking lumps out of each other in public - and these are members of their own party remember!  Very little is off-limits when it comes to spilling the dirt on your brother-in-arms - although sexual transgression seems to be the one area that is generally left alone.  Tell the voting public - on air - that your opponent is a crook, a criminal, a tax-dodging fly-by-night,  an abortion-supporting (read MURDERER in Republican-speak), terrorist-loving liberal who dodged his National Service, and everyone nods sagely and accepts the bending of the truth as fair game.  Mention that the 3-times married candidate once suggested a tryst between his current and prior wives and the population is aghast....  "Unfair!", they shout - isn't a man allowed some privacy in his personal life?  The rest of the field sniff, look away and thank God for the conservatism of a nation.....

By the way - Mitt Romney won.....

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The institution known as St. Patrick's Day...

One of the many strange adoptions in this country is the embrace of St Patrick's Day as America's own.  The journey each year begins on September 14 the previous year - with every bar, baseball club and most of the population celebrating 'Halfway to St Paddy's Day' as a mid-year practice run.  Go to a Major League Baseball game on this day and you're likely to receive a free green hat if you are one of the first couple of thousand visitors in the park, find yourself surrounded by people wearing green - and trying to order beers with an Irish accent to beat the band.... I suspect the MLB franchise started this tradition because they were so miffed at St Patrick's Day falling during the off-season and missing a big profit opportunity!

   Who'd have thought that they're really called the White Sox?

You know that you are getting close to the real St Patrick's Day when the new car manufacturer and dealership adverts start to appear with deals and offers related to Leprechauns, pots of gold discounts and suggestions that your neighbour will think you have the luck of the Irish when they see you driving in your new Chevy / Cadillac / Lincoln or whatever. (The US Advertising and media industries would likely have collapsed too if the government had allowed GM and Chrysler to fail back in 2010 - every 2nd TV ad is for a car!)

The State Lotteries also get into the game too - there are special scratch cards sold by the Illinois Lottery just for the run-up to March 17 - with a special 'Win a Million' card for a cool $20!  

St Patrick's Day itself is advertised and promoted in every bar in every town across the country - many open at 8AM (especially in the city of Chicago) - with great taglines to get the punters through the doors ("Kegs and Eggs" was one of the better ones I saw!")

Many bars - Irish or not - do a special Irish Breakfast - bacon, eggs, sausage, tomato, baked beans, potato, soda bread and black pudding (only real Irish bars seem to find White Pudding too...).  Washed down with a pint of Guinness is generally the only way to really enjoy it!

There is also an over-exuberance from most bar staff, every one of which will dress up for the occasion (unless it is a real Irish Bar in which case some of them dress like this all year round...!)

The BIG tradition and event in Chicago is - of course - the St Patrick's Day Parade, which sets off at midday and runs through the middle of Grant Park, close to the lakefront.   Today was the warmest March 17th in 141 years in Chicago - the temperature hit 81 degrees Fahrenheit even with the lake breeze, and over a hundred thousand people came into the city to see the parade - as well as the see the famous dying of the Chicago River (boats run along the river turning it Orange first, the a vibrant Green).

Of course by this time at least half the crown are drunk off their rocks - and it's said that the river does not need any more dye added to keep it green for the rest of the day and night....!

So should you visit Chicago during the St Patrick's Day weekend?  If you enjoy a party, can live with queuing up for 30 minutes just to get into a bar (any bar - not just the 'popular' ones), drinking beer out of plastic cups (for safety you know), and avoiding the staggering masses through the course of the afternoon and evening, then yes - you'll have a wild time!  If not, go to Dublin instead - it's full of real people telling great stories, drinking real Guinness and enjoying the day as it's meant to be - a celebration of the coming of Christianity to Ireland.

Bang-up Belt-Buster Burger - A first visit to 'Five Guys'

For some time now, the very mention in public of an intention to purchase - or even a craving for - a burger leads to someone within earshot saying "oh, you MUST go to Five Guys - there's nowhere like it!".
Now I really cannot say that I'm a burger Connoisseur - I was not born here in the XXL US of A, and was in my late teens before McDonald's opened their first cookie-cutter joint anywhere near my home town (and still clearly remember my brother-in-law driving 40 miles to Manchester to experience the first 'Drive-Thru' McDonald's that opened in the UK in 1986 - apparently once he arrived there was queue half way to the next town). I never go to 'Wendy's' because I just can't get over my objection to a square burger, Burger King have OK onion rings but the rest of the meal leaves me cold. McDonald's is.... consistent. Fuddruckers Is ghastly - not sure why anyone would eat there. Red Robin - now there's a good burger (and their fish & chips is allegedly excellent too), but it's at a level of formality and price that that puts it up there alongside Applebee's, Chili's, Olive Garden and other "Quick Serve Restaurants" (why does anyone want Fast Food service at Restaurant prices? I don't get it...). So - although I may feel like a burger from time to time I invariably end up going for something else instead - but maybe not anymore...!

After hearing all the hype about Five Guys over the past number of years we have suddenly have one open just down the road - and as we needed to head into the city of Chicago one evening this week I thought we should at least drop in and try it.

Five Guys was started in 1986 in Washington DC by - not 5, but 4 brothers who were given a 'work or college' ultimatum by their parents - and chose the 'work' option (kids huh!). Brother number 5 joined them when he got old enough, and the 'double burger joint' became a local cult eatery. The one restaurant in 1986 grew shortly to 4 in the DC area - and added some seating options. It stayed pretty much that way until the early 2000's when the Brothers decided to move into a limited franchising model - from where it has grown to over 900 restaurants today just 9 years later.

The business model is really simple - very limited selection of burgers (and a couple of alternatives like Hot Dogs, Veggie choice, Grilled Cheese sandwich, etc), with a range of topping choices that you can add on at no additional cost, 2 sizes of chips (fries) and 2 sizes of drinks (soda). That's it. Not much choice you may say - but apparently you can get 250,000 combinations of food cooked fresh to order in that simple little menu - remarkable.

On entering the restaurant (5:45 PM on a weekday) the place was BUSY. 8 or 9 people in the queue - which moved pretty quickly. A nice touch is the notice board on the wall with cards and pencils to write on (or draw for the kids!) and pin up for others to read whilst waiting.

Another big draw is the endless supply of boiled peanuts that you help yourself to - in the queue, waiting for the food, with the food, after the food - just keep topping them up (you can't take them out of the place with you though!).

There were 2 servers taking the orders - with a 3'rd on hand to jump in if the queue gets too big. Ordering is simple - regular (double) or little (single) burger - order plain, with cheese, with bacon or with Cheese and bacon. Toppings (just read them off the board), fries and drink. That's it. You'll get a receipt with your number - then take a seat and wait for the 7 cooks to get to your order and build your burgers in front of you (well, behind the kitchen counter, but you can see real well!). They'll call your number - grab the food and sit and eat!

So..... what's it like?

Well - first thing I would say is that I'd hate to see the calorie count of my double-burger with cheese and bacon - topped with grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, mayonnaise, tomato and ketchup. it probably had enough nutrients to last me a couple of days - even without the fantastic fresh cooked French Fries (real potatoes from Idaho - it says so on the wall and they are stacked up all around you). Everything is cooked using Peanut Oil which adds a great flavor (and probably another few hundred calories along with a more than thin layer of clorestorol on my aorta). The taste was great - fries were red hot and lots of them (we had the medium size and there were as many loose in the bag as there were in the pot). The burger was very good - not too hot but certainly warm enough - suspect that is because of the way the order is put together on the open table - you can see it is freshly made and assembled right in the open.

So would I go back again?  Most definitely - I think the only problem now is that I'm less likely to risk trying a burger anywhere else!

Real potato's (from Idaho no less)!

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Location:Matteson, IL

Circle of Lake Michigan

Last summer we accepted a little challenge to tackle the 1000 mile circle of Lake Michigan in 48 hours (on motorcycles - as you will see). This is the summary of that ride, the places we passed, stayed and ate in - and the fantastic scenery and weather we enjoyed along the way.

 US2 heading west across the Upper Penninsula, Michigan

Day 1 - Friday

There were 3 of us who decided that we would join up and do the journey - all on separate bikes. Chosen weekend was July 22-24, 2011, and the plan was to leave early afternoon Friday, ride "anti clockwise" around the lake and avoiding all interstates once clearing the bottom of Lake Michigan (there are not many alternatives to I-80/94 past Gary, Indiana; and those that do exist you really don't want to take!). Friday July 24 started as a wet and miserable day - and the worry was that it would continue that way for the whole weekend as the forecast was for prolonged rain with strong winds and thunderstorms....  Showers came and went through the morning and died out by early afternoon - just in time for the initial ride out to the meeting point at Lincoln Oasis (Service area) on I-294 close to the state line between Illinois and Michigan. 3:30 PM was the agreed departure time - and with the rain still holding off we headed East.  The first few miles under the belt went well - across the State Line and on into..... 20 miles of stopped traffic.... Aargh!

Welcome to Indiana - you are about to get plenty of time to enjoy staring at the scenery.....

Now we did have a rough plan of where we were going - as well as some target distance to cover on the first day.  We knew the total trip distance was just over 1,000 miles, and it made sense to cover around 250 miles on the first day, 500 on the Saturday and another 250+ on Sunday, so Ludington, MI was the planned stop for the first night.  Thankfully the odd shower had faded out as we sat in the stop/go traffic around the bottom of the lake (in the USA it is prohibited to split lanes - aka filtering - so that slows you down significantly compared to riding in Europe). Eventually we got moving again as the traffic dispersed to Ohio, Detriot and South Bend - or wherever the hell else Indiana traffic disperses to on a Friday evening - and we crossed the next State Line into Michigan (where we had to stop briefly so that the Harley rider in the party could remove his helmet) and turned off the Interstate onto the Red Arrow Highway heading North.  

The run up the south-eastern side of Lake Michigan takes you through a string of really nice coastal towns that feature weekend festivals, great restaurants, small hotels and bars ( you know I like bars).  Even though the populations swell with holiday visitors and weekend boaters, each town has its own charm and none of them ever feel too busy. (look out for my future "3 Nights" series which will cover a number of these little gems, including South Haven, Saugatuk and Grand Haven). 

By 7 PM we had run completely clear of the mixed weather that was continuing to push across the Northern Illinois and Indiana region, and we were experiencing a beautiful summer evening all around us as we pushed on up to our overnight stop. 

Rolling into Ludington at just before 9 PM the town had a great vibe about it as the High Street was closed off and there was clearly some kind of fair going on. Now a word of advice from the weary traveller - turning up on a Friday evening in mid-July in a holiday lakeside town without pre-booking somewhere to stay is not a clever thing to do.....  Ludington has a good number of very nice small hotels and B&B's - however none of them had 2 rooms available on-demand. This town is also the eastern terminus for the Lake Michigan car ferry service that runs daily across from Manitowoc in Wisconsin - so any remaining rooms in decent hotels had already been grabbed by people rolling off the evening arrival an hour or so earlier. A few frantic phone calls later and we managed to secure 2 rooms at Stearns Motor Inn - a kind of landmark building on the edge of the downtown area that at least allowed time and distance to walk around and find something to eat and drink.   Well - the hairs started to prickle on the back of the neck as we walked in through the main (only working) door and headed to the reception desk. I can't say there was a warm smell of colitas in the air, but I could have sworn I heard the soft tones of an Eagles song playing somewhere in the distance, and I would not be surprised to hear that the guy on the reception is a direct descendant of Norman Bates..... creaking floorboards, missing lightbulbs, 1950's decor - you get the picture! No Janet Leigh in the bathtub (alive or dead), but also no bar, food - or other guests either from what I could see....

A short walk down the High Street (now reopened as the "Friday Night Live" festival had finished) and we spotted what looked like an interesting and lively bar called 'The Sportsmans' - advertising fresh cooked food and a good selection of draft beers - with live music too. Always ready to enjoy a good band, we squeezed into a corner table just as the band stopped and the juke box started! Fresh cooked food was some kind of crap-in-the-basket and the beer was warm Amber Bock - quite tasty but so difficult to get the server's attention for the refills. Not somewhere I would go back to I'm afraid to say. 

After fighting our way back through the drunken crowd (scenes from John Carpenter's "The Fog" we're coming to mind by now) we escaped the bar and walked down the rest of the high street to the lake front - a pretty and peaceful setting at that time of night.

Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that is wholly within the United States of America - and is the largest lake in the world that has all of its shoreline within a single country. It has a surface area of 22,500 square miles - which is pretty big (half the size of England) - and a shoreline of over 1,600 miles.  It is also known affectionately as "Lake Dick"... (look at it on Google Maps......)!  The lake was the conduit for industrial development in the Midwest of the US during the 19th century as the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway opened up the Great Lakes to large vessels from the Atlantic. The Illinois and Michigan Canal was then built in the mid-1800's to connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and provide access from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of Mexico.

So.... A pleasant stroll back to Bates Motel (creak, creak) led to a surprisingly good night's sleep, a coppery taste in the mouth and a desperate need for coffee on Saturday morning...

Day 2 - Saturday

Saturday morning arrived with a light fog slowly pulling back towards the lake and a silent town at 8 AM. Bikes fired up, kit checked and ready to go and find food...

Heading East out of Ludington we all scanned the roadside for food (not Roadkill - that is only a southern state delicacy) - and as if by some Devine intervention came my first ever introduction to the Big Boy....!

So how do you describe a Big Boy...?  Well, first and foremost - it's a roadside diner (stop it!) - and is a chain that started in California back in 1937 as a roadside hamburger stand.  They do great breakfasts - and are home to the double-hamburger for those of you that need more than the average bear, boo-boo!

Big Boy welcomes all travellers...

After a world-class Breakfast of Champions we were ready to hit the road north - US-31 all the way from Ludington to Mackinaw City via Manistee, Traverse City and Elk Rapids.  This is a GREAT road - not much traffic, the sun was shining and the temperature climbed into the low 80's by mid-morning. There was a big carnival event underway in Manistee which slowed us down a tad, but everyone was having so much fun it really didn't matter.

Early crowd out enjoying the sun and freshwater sardines in Manistee.

The great roads - and ride - continued all the way on to Traverse City, which sits at the head of Grand Traverse Bay and holds the envious position of being the largest producers of tart cherries in the United States..! It's actually a lovely town with wide pavements (footpaths), a super variety of small shops, beautiful waterfront and lots to do for the selective holiday maker. Boating and horse riding in the summer, skiing in the winter - this town has everything! 

US-31 continues to wind its way north from Traverse City towards Mackinaw City and the route from the southern part of Michigan across the Straits of Mackinac to the Upper Peninsula

Elk Rapids - you can get by the lake anywhere around here!

Mackinaw City was about the mid-point for our day 2 journey, and is the main kick-off point for both the Mackinac Bridge that spans the Mackinac Straits and the ferry's that ply the waters out to the Islands in the area - the main ones being Bois Blanc Island and Mackinac Island.   Mackinaw City is a small town that has a great little walkable downtown area with a mix of tourist shops, arts and craft stores and - of course - food and drinks!  We had a good walk around the town and settled on a small "Fish & Chips" cafe in an arcade on East Central Avenue - it was fantastic! Sitting in the sunshine, shooting the breeze, halfway round the trip - what more can you ask!

Fully fed and watered, the road on to the Upper Peninsula was beckoning. Leaving Mackinaw City the Mackinac Bridge dominates the horizon - it is actually the 3rd longest suspension bridge in the world - and the longest in the western hemisphere. The total length of the bridge is over 26,000 feet and it opened to traffic for the first time in 1957 - prior to that the only way to cross the straits to the Upper Penninsula was by ferry (which was pretty difficult in the winter too). 

Mackinac Bridge that spans The Mackinac Straits

Once over the bridge it was time to turn west.... Onto US-2, which runs 2,579 miles across the northern United States - the main part of which starts in St. Ignace, MI and ends in Everett, Washington. The part of this road that runs across the Michigan Upper Peninsula is a great road with little traffic even at the height of the tourist season, and has some great lakeside scenery for over 200 miles. To get an idea of the feel of this road, take a look at my YouTube clip: 

http://youtu.be/TxYHgf5CL8I

For those not familiar with American roads.... It is pretty difficult to find anything but straight roads for miles on end anywhere in the Midwest. This is primarily because of the vast distances between ..... well, between anywhere, really. Why put a bend in a road if you don't need to? Just keep going straight until you hit the next town (everything being built on a common grid system also helps to keep this principle alive)!  this was one of the pleasures of escaping to northern Michigan and Wisconsin - maybe not twisty roads like in other parts of the world that have real mountains, but at least a good number of curves, sweepers, bends and turns! Oh - and a delicacy that is widely advertised up in the UP is... the Pasty!  Cornish Copper and Tim miners came to this area in the early 1800's and brought with them that staple meal of the Cornish Pasty! It has remained as a tradition in this part of the world and is sold at many roadside cafe's and there is even an annual Pasty Fest in Calumet, MI in early July (darn, we missed it!)

The day drew to an end in Marinette, Wisconsin... after enjoying the ride through some delightful small towns along the northern coast such as Manistique, Gladstone and Escanaba (where we should have stayed for our 2nd night)!

Marinette in a twin-town with Menominee, Michigan - situated on the bay of Green Bay (ever heard of the Green Bay Packers?) and separated by the Menominee River - which also serves as the State Line is these here parts. We stayed in a fairly tidy Best Western hotel - but after a short walk around it was clear that there was VERY LITTLE to do in this part of town. I think the lakeside area of Menominee would have been the right area to stay - remember that earlier comment about booking in advance....?  Anyway, we had a healthy 2 mile return walk to the Rail House Restaurant and Brewpub which was actually half decent, although it was - literally - on the wrong side of the tracks......!  Back to the hotel and the 2 local wedding parties were both in full swing - riding the elevator up with a drunken bride and 2 Best Men (where was the groom?)  made it clear which side of the state line we had crossed into...!

Day 3 - Sunday

At this point we were only 200+ miles away from home - and the weather that had been lashing the western side of the lake all weekend was putting in a late and feeble appearance. A couple of cups of coffee led to a short blast south to find a decent breakfast place and a discussion around which route to take back down into Illinois. After an hour the sun put his hat back on and it was time to hit the road again - cutting west from Green Bay to New London (nothing like Old London), skirting Appleton, and taking US-45 down through Oshkosh and Fond Du Lac along the edge of Lake Winnebago (of the motor caravan fame!).  Keeping west of Milwaukee and east of Fox Lake we crossed back into Illinois around 1 PM and ran the last 100 miles home  in the next 90 minutes - 30 minutes inside the 48 hour target and with 1024 miles on the odometer. 

Right - so, where next?

A day trip to Elgin, IL

We needed to go to Elgin, IL for a work-related meeting, so decided to make a day of it and spend some time walking around the town, visiting the shops (and a bar or two!), before heading to the casino for some fun!

Elgin Tower Building was built in 1929 as headquarters to the Home National Bank & Home Trust and Savings Bank - interesting and dominant Art Deco building slap bang in the center of the 'city'.




The downtown area of the city is quite an eclectic mix of different ages and styles of buildings - thankfully the city has recognized the value of the majority and slapped preservation orders on them so that developers can't just keep tearing them down and building anew. There are plenty of nice stores, cafe's, bars and restaurants to wander around - although I have to say that this Saturday afternoon is rather quiet! Maybe weekdays are busier?



There are a couple of interesting murals on the back wall of a nondescript warehouse building on the north side of town - not sure who painted them as they don't appear to be accredited to anyone






Elgin is a fast-growing city about 40 miles west of Chicago on the Fox River - likely why it first came into existence as it was on the stagecoach trail out from Chicago to Galena (which is a beautiful small old mining town on the Mississippi that once threatened to be the Midwest major city that Chicago eventually became). Apparently it was named by the founding fathers after the Scottish hymn "The song of Elgin" (there's a nice British link!)

The town is built in the valley created by the Fox River - with railway lines running alongside the river as a good example of how the railroads took priority over pretty much everything else as America became industrialized.

I suspect there was some connection with Native American Indians as some of the trees downtown have hand-knitted blankets tied around them as if there is some kind of festival underway - unfortunately I could not see anything around to give an indication of what the background to the 'exhibition' is! Here is an example of one of the blankets:





Now I'm actually editing this blog in an interesting little bar on East Chicago Street called the Elgin Public House (fancy that!). They have a couple of good craft beers on draft, free wi-fi and fantastic large hot pretzels (real ones - not those horrible faux dried things in little bags that you get on US airlines) with dipping honey mustard sauce. Nice authentic little place to spend an hour in my book.

Now - one of the big historical facts about Elgin was that it was home to the Elgin Watch Company - which employed three generations of Elginites from the late 19th to the mid 20th century, when it was the largest producer of fine watches in the United States (the factory ceased production in the early 1960s and was torn down in 1965 apparently). On Watch Street however there is still an interesting building which has been preserved - the Elgin Elgin National Watch Company Observatory - which was used to precisely calculate the time by the stars to then set the watches prior to shipping to stores....!

Elgin National Watch Company Observatory:



Well after all that historical jumbo-jumbo it was time to head down to the Grand Victoria Casino - which is a typical Midwest riverboat-based casino close to the downtown area. Now those of you that know us well are fully aware that we do enjoy a bit of a flutter from time to time - however I've got to say I was pretty disappointed with this particular casino. Way too busy (but I guess they are not complaining about that), everything felt very crammed in, and it was difficult to even get a seat on anything. On top of that there was only a handful of our favorite types of slots (25c - last of the big spenders!) - everything else was either $1 (way too extravagant) or 2c and 5c (what - you think we're cheap?)... No seats at the roulette tables and crowds around every other game in the place - you may recall I commented earlier that there was no-one around the town center on a Saturday afternoon - well now we all know where the entire Elgin population goes when not out shopping!

Grand Victoria Casino - Elgin, Illinois.


So... That was enough for one afternoon. Time to return home and a bite to eat at Aurelio's Pizza instead. I enjoyed Elgin - but don't think I could eat more than 1 a year...!


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