Wednesday - Chicago to Lakeside

 We had breakfast in the hotel.  Robbie was working in the morning and Martin had to get his cat to the place where Tiger would stay for the weekend. We decided to head on out to Lakeside.  We made a few stops along the way.

Indiana Dunes Riverwalk

Redwing Blackbird

Riverwalk

See the bee?

We drove on the Indiana Dunes Visitor's Center.  We got some information of things to do in the area.

Buffalo

Hand painted mural

Welcome to Michigan

By now I was getting pretty hungry. 

We stopped in New Buffalo at the Stray Dog restaurant. Nathan picked it.  It had good reviews.  It was obviously a popular place.  It was nearly 2 pm and there still was a long line of people waiting to get seated. We had to wait about 1/2 hour to be seated.  The food was very good.  Nathan bought some deep fried cheese curds.  I had a few of them.  I had a delicious veggie burger, Jeanne had fish tacos, George had a rice bowl and Nathan had a fake chicken sandwich.

It was a very good choice.  Not only did it have great food but it had a lot of fun dog photos and themed items.

From there we drove to our AirBnB.  

It is a very nice 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom house.  Jeanne got the basement.  It has been converted into a bedroom.  Robbie and Ice got here about an hour later.  They got the master bedroom, since they would be here the whole time.  Jeanne and I would be leaving on Thursday.

 

We hung around, played some games, and generally waited until the rest of the group arrived.  Once Dorothy and Ed arrived we walked over to their place.  They have a nice house, too.  Ours has a little larger dining area. We picked up the rice cooker, since Ice was fixing dinner.  

Ice

Ice went all out with a Thai meal of toasted tofu, tofu vegetable curry, vegetable stir-fry and steak. Something for everyone.  We were eating by 8 pm. Martin arrived in time for dinner.  George S, Valerie, Kallie and Amelia arrived while we were eating.  

Ice and Robbie

Ed, Dorothy and Nathan

George S with Amelia

Robbie and Martin

Ed, Ice, Robbie Martin, George, and Jeanne.

Valerie, George S, Amelia and Kallie in the playroom porch.  Kallie is 14 and is Valerie's daughter.  She is great with Amelia.

Dorothy brought over 2 blueberry pies.  Robbie had gone out to buy ice cream.  This is all that was left.

It was delicious

When everyone was done eating George S and his gang finally sat down to eat.  They had had lunch even later than we did. So they were not very hungry.

Amelia and George S 

Amelia, George S, Kallie and Valerie

Everyone watching Amelia.  ;-)  

They played Jenga for a while.  Dorothy, Ed and Martin were the first to leave.  Martin was staying at Dorothy and Ed's place.  George S and gang were staying at the Lakeside Inn.  Once they left Robbie and Nathan set up their computers to play some computer game.  The rest of us just relaxed.  We spent a lot of time talking about Thursday morning's plan. Everyone wanted to go to the lake.  The Lakeside Inn has its own beach access but there is no public parking.  George S can park there.  

We had come up with a convoluted plan of a way to get everyone to the beach but not have anyone (except George S) park there.  We will see how it works out. The weather prediction is thunderstorms and rain for early in the morning.  

Singer/Walker family reunion

 George and I left the house at 5 am on Tuesday to go pick up Nathan.  We were flying to Chicago for a Singer/Walker family reunion.  It will be in Lakeside, Michigan.  Both Robbie and Martin live in the Chicago area.  Lakeside is not too far away.

Apparently they could not find a home for the cuckoo clock so they cut it apart.  I am not sure where all of the parts went.Portland's Cuckoo Clock Taken Apart

Going through security was interesting.  I had the the short TsaPreCk line.  George and Nathan did not. So I zipped along on my short line.  I put my bags into the security checker.  There was one guy in front of me.  "Um, sir, you have a loaded handgun in your bag!"  "Oh darn I forgot abot that."  ARGH!!..... I was stuck waiting.  Finally they removed my bag and took it to a new line.  As usual they did not like my wine bottle opener which is guaranteed ok for flights.  But because they were short staffed dealing with the gun guy, they did not have anyone to look at my wine bottle opener.  Finally someone came by.  Yup it is ok.  So I was on my way.  George and Nathan both were waiting for me. 

We are on our way.

The flight was uneventful.  George could not eat his peanut butter sandwich.  They announced that there was someone one the plane with a peanut allergy.  He ate it while we were waiting for Jeanne to come pick us up.  Jeanne has joined a lot of the Singer/Walker family reunions.  She is a part of the family.

Since we could not check into the hotel until 3 pm she drove us straight to Morton's arboretum.  We wandered around that .  It was huge. 

Some art work both made and natural.

The kids area

The hedge maze

My Monet. ;-)

Because of the Canadian wildfires the air was very smoky.  

The smoky skyline

We got to our hotel and checked in and then went over to Robbie and Ice's place.

Robbie & Ice's place

We had gotten a text from my niece, Linda.  She was in town for the day and she suggested meeting for drinks later.  So we were working on a plan.  Linda was in the downtown area.  We came up with several ideas.  Then Linda told us that here afternoon river boat tour was canceled due to the air quality so she was free.  New plan.  Ice was still at work.  Robbie did not want to go into town.  We were going to take the Metra in but we found out that it did not stop at the close station at that time.  Jeanne did not want to drive to downtown and parking is expensive.  So we took a Lyft to Linda's hotel.  She suggested La Josie, Mexican.  As we walked there we went by Avec (was this the one we had gone  to, Sharon? 615 Randolf?) .  We got our name on the list.  They said that it would be about 45 minutes.  Argh.  We were hungry so we went next door to Rooh, Indian.  No line!!  It had a Michelin star.  

Nathan, Linda and Jeanne

cauliflower

sweet potato chaat and butter chicken

paneer makani 

Every dish was super delicious.  When we were done eating we got the notification that our table was ready next door (1 hour and 15 min) .  I am glad that we had not waited.

Nathan and Linda

Linda will be moving to Chicago in 2 weeks.  The tall building in the middle is her office building.

We took a Lyft back to Robbie and Ice's place.  We played 10, 9, 8.   

Robbie made Jeanne a margarita.  We had wine.

Ice finally made it home.  She had stopped to get take out from a close Indian restaurant. She had some lobster dish.  I guess it was a fusion restaurant.  I don't think that I have heard of lobster in India.

We were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel once we finished the game.