For vacation this year, we took a road trip back to Illinois, stopping along the way there and back to see some things. In years past when we’ve driven to Illinois, we tried to knock out the 14 hours as quickly as possible. This time, we took our time to make it feel more like a vacation. We packed a lot in, so I’ve got a vacation round-up in three parts for you. Part One: On the way to Illinois; Part Two: In and Around Illinois; Part Three: On the way back to PA. If you’re on Instagram, I posted a daily photo round–up of our trip. Some of the visuals in these posts will be the same, but some will be different.
Here we go!
Because Phil’s vacation time is limited, we try to maximize our time by leaving after he gets off work on Saturdays. By 6 p.m. that night, we had our Sheetz order in hand and were headed to our hotel in western Pennsylvania. As I passed around the order, we discovered two sliders that belonged to someone else’s order. Oops. Nothing we could do. We pulled into the Super 8 in Uniontown, PA around 10 p.m. and the front of the building was lit with colorful lights. Hotels were a point of anxiety for me as I made reservations. Reviews are so mixed online. This one turned out to be just okay. All we really needed was a place to sleep. (The front desk clerk offered me the opportunity to play the video slots in their game room. I declined. 10 o’clock is already past my bedtime, and I’m no gambler.)
We had hotel breakfast the next morning: a smattering of continental choices, then headed out to Friendship Hill National Historic Site.
We planned most of our stops around national parks/historic sites because that’s our jam. We had two left to visit in western Pennsylvania after last year’s vacation when we visited the Johnstown Flood Memorial, the Flight 93 Memorial and the Alleghany Portage Railroad National Historic Site. Friendship Hill was the first this year. It’s the home of Albert Gallatin who was Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson.
Friendship Hill is the house he built for his retirement. We had arrived earlier than the visitor center was open, so we wandered the grounds for about 30 minutes. There’s a gazebo overlooking the Monongahela River, and we took a short walk to the supposed site of Gallatin’s first wife’s grave.
When the visitor center opened, we got a thorough introduction from the park ranger on duty. (Shout out to park rangers! They are knowledgeable and friendly, in our experience, and willing to answer any and all questions.) We did a self-guided tour of the house, which we had to ourselves anyway. Some of what we learned:
– the Marquis de Lafayette (yes, that one!) visited Gallatin’s house in 1825 and it was a big freaking deal. The county where Friendship Hill is located–Fayette County–is named after him.
– Our son was super interested in a display about tongue-and-groove construction.
– Gallatin was involved in the Whiskey Rebellion and had opposing views from Alexander Hamilton; he is also buried at Trinity Church in New York City. (We’ve seen Hamilton’s grave. We probably missed Gallatin’s because we didn’t know!)
– Gallatin founded the town of New Geneva and most of its businesses, including a glass shop (as in, they blew glass there)
I just love old houses and the history they contain. I like to imagine what they were like in their day and sometimes I can almost feel the presence of those who’ve been there before. I get a thrill walking in the footsteps of history. (Lafayette was there and so was I!)
After some obligatory purchases from the shop, we headed to our lunch stop, about an hour away in Washington, Pa., a place called Hog Father’s that I found on the map. An unofficial rule in our family (carried over from my family) is that we try not to eat anywhere that we could eat at home. (So, no fast food or chains that are found everywhere.) As a kid, this made me nervous because I hated the pressure of having to order something from an unknown place. I knew what I liked at the familiar places and didn’t like having to make a decision. Now, I know better what I like in general, although I still don’t like to take a lot of time to read the whole menu. When I find something I like, I order it.
Our son had a southern fried chicken sandwich and fries, and in his words: “This is the best chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten.” He proceeded to tell two people who worked there that this was the case. Our daughter had the same chicken but in a wrap with cole slaw. Phil had a southern brisket sandwich, green beans and cornbread.
I had a brisket salad, and I use the word “salad” loosely.
There was so.much.meat along with fries and crispy onions on the salad. It was topped with their homemade barbecue ranch dressing. We needed more stomachs for all that food. And a nap.
But we got back in the car. We were planning to stop in Youngstown, Ohio, at an attraction I found on Roadside America, but we had an extended bathroom break and gas fill-up just across the Ohio border, so we scrapped that stop and headed for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We’ve passed signs for this park many times, and our kids made a brief stop there one year with their grandparents. We knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time, so we made a quick stop at the visitor center.
We consulted a map and thought about trying to see one of the sights in the park called The Ledges, but when we got to the trailhead, we realized the hike was going to be longer than we had time for. So, we drove to the Great Heron lookout, which was our planned stop in the park. We saw a bunch of heron nests in the trees but were a little too late in the season to see any birds.
The drive through the park was beautiful and we’re already talking about taking a long weekend to come back and do a bunch of hiking.
Traveling back to the turnpike, we had a near-miss accident on the road. We were in the blindspot of a car that had just entered the highway. It started to change lanes and was inches away from hitting us. Phil was able to ease us onto the shoulder as the other car swerved back into its lane. We were shaken up but mostly okay. Then came several hours of anxiety-induced travel on the Ohio Turnpike. This is not my favorite road ever. I’m discovering for myself how bodies remember the trauma of place, and mine certainly seemed to remember that day so many years ago when I totaled a car on this very road.
We finally made it to our dinner stop in Toledo, a place we found off the turnpike years ago–Tony Packo’s.
The only way to describe it is Hungarian fast casual food. We had never eaten at the original location, only a fast-food style one in another part of town. This building also includes a hot dog bun museum–yes, you heard that right. Famous people (and locally famous people) have signed hot dog buns that are now on display throughout the restaurant.
Also, the food is amazing. Among the four of us we had sausages and hot dogs, mac and cheese, chili mac, chicken paprikas over dumplings, stuffed cabbage, pickles, cole slaw and cucumber salad. Phil and I each had a local beer.
Our hotel in Michigan was only another half an hour away, and we rolled into the Tru by Hilton around 9 p.m. after a small detour through town. I should mention that we let the 13-year-old navigate on this trip. Phil sent her maps and she told him when to turn. Except that in Monroe, Michigan, he hadn’t included the hotel, just the town name so the GPS took us to the center of town instead of out to the hotel.
A note about the hotel: we had never stayed at this brand before and it was pretty great. Certainly the best hotel of our stay. 10/10 would book again.
There was a beautiful sunset out our window. A great welcome from Michigan, which was a first visit for most of our family.
Monday morning, Phil woke up early to run to Lake Erie, which was only a couple miles from our hotel. He got some beautiful sunrise and bird pictures.
The rest of us took our time and went downstairs for hotel breakfast. The highlight of breakfast was the pancake machine. You waved your hand in front of the machine and it plopped some batter onto a conveyor belt and spit out a cooked pancake at the end. The kids were obsessed and I was fascinated. (I’m not a big pancake eater.) A quality hotel breakfast here, as well.
When we were all fed and ready to leave, we headed to our next park site–River Raisin National Battlefield Park.
We were there before the visitor center opened, so we walked around the site and read all the plaques, then took a walk around the meadow.
The visitor center opened at 10 and was a short drive from the battlefield, so we we went there and watched a short movie and listened to a park ranger give us an explanation of the map. After the movie, we viewed the large diorama of Frenchtown, which was what the settlement was called at the time of the battle.
River Raisin was the bloodiest battle on Michigan soil and the worst defeat of the War of 1812 for the American military. We heard a connection to our friend, Albert Gallatin, who helped negotiate the surrender at Ghent. Our son enjoyed the 3-pounder cannon mounted on a sled because the battle was fought in winter.
This visit raised lots of questions for us about what the Native American narrative would be about these events. There are some troubling parts to this story, but we didn’t ask our questions.
“Remember the Raisin!” became the battle cry of the western campaign of the War of 1812.
We had originally planned to eat lunch at a unique restaurant in Monroe, but it didn’t open until 11:30 and we were ready to leave town well before that, so we headed to Ann Arbor. We passed the University of Michigan stadium on our way to Washtenaw Dairy.
We picked this place because apparently Superman ice cream is a Midwest treat we’ve never tried and they serve it here. (The side of the building says, “We’re legend-dairy.” I love a good pun!)
Three of us had Superman ice cream, a blend of blue moon, lemon and red soda/pop. Our daughter had lemon custard. I would not have ordered Superman ice cream if we were on one of our normal ice cream visits, but I was glad I did. It was unique and oddly delicious. Since we skipped our lunch plans, we also ordered donuts at the dairy and had a nutritious lunch of donuts and ice cream. Donut flavors we tried: maple glazed with peanuts, vanilla with sprinkles, coconut flakes, cinnamon sugar and chocolate glazed.
Not long after we got back on the highway, we were diverted by Google to some backroads due to accident traffic. Our next stop was Battle Creek, Michigan, home of the Kellogg Company. We passed the headquarters, but that’s not why we were there.
On the Roadside America site, I found the Fantasy Forest, part of the Leila Arboretum.
It’s a collection of trees that were killed by the emerald ash borer and instead of pulling out all the stumps, the arboretum asked artists to design and carve them. It is incredible. Our son was excited for the life-size Groot.
As we drove through Michigan, we noticed all the roads named “mile,” such as 28-mile road. Can someone from Michigan explain this to me? Also, marijuana is proudly legal in Michigan. How do we know? All the billboards! (We still live in a state where marijuana is only legal for medical use, so we’re not used to seeing this kind of openness.)
Our next goal was the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center, which we thought closed at 4 p.m. central time. So, we were hustling to make it and pulled in to the parking lot before 3:30 p.m., only to find out they’re open till 6. Oh well. The Indiana Dunes is only a couple of hours from our hometown but neither Phil nor I can ever remember going there. This was another park that we couldn’t spend a lot of time at and that is still on our list of parks to visit. We asked a ranger what we should see if we only had an hour. She seemed disappointed. (To be honest, so were we.) We shopped the gift store and then headed to Kemil Beach. Our first glimpse of Lake Michigan from this side was awe-inspiring. We could see the Chicago skyline. (Usually we see Lake Michigan from the Chicago side.)
It was hot, though, and everyone but us was dressed for the beach so we didn’t stay long. Phil and our son took a short hike on one of the dunes while our daughter and I refreshed ourselves at the car then joined them for the last little bit. On our way out of the park, we drove through an historic part showcasing houses from the 1933 World’s Fair.
Our dinner stop was White Castle because we’d had the frozen microwaveable burgers once and Phil wanted to convince the kids that the burgers fresh from the restaurant were better. This particular White Castle was in a gas station, which totally tracks for White Castle’s vibe in my mind. There were double sliders, chicken and waffle sliders, single sliders, fries and onion rings in our order. Why do we do this to ourselves?
We rolled in to our hometown–as my son put it, “our last hotel” aka my parents’ house–before 9 p.m. and watched the Olympics before turning in.
