Category: Excursions

Doggie Weekend

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Saturday morning we headed to the Morton Arboretum with our friend, K, and her dog for their Tails On The Trails event. The line to get in was nuts and we had to park in a temporary lot that was set up since it was so crowded, but we had a great time walking around meeting dogs and their people. They had a scale available so I weighed Wookie – she’s 9.8 lbs now!

After two hours of walking around we found a place to have a picnic lunch before heading home.

After K went home Joe was going to work on the transition piece in the living/dining room but it turns out the pieces we purchased from HOBO were the wrong type. Luckily they let us exchange them even though it was a little past the 30 day refund/exchange window. Joe left a tool at his work, however, so he didn’t actually install them. It’s now scheduled to be done next Saturday morning.

In the meantime Joe decided to wash both cars and I sat outside with Wookie to keep him company.

This morning we took Wookie to the CSBarks Festival in Carol Stream. We go every year but it was even more fun having a dog with us. We ran into Stormy, one of the dogs from Wookie’s Petsmart puppy training class, as well as the neighbor two doors down with her dog, Panda. Our vet and groomer had a combined booth at the event so we stopped by to say hello as well. Wookie ended up with a nice bag of people and doggie swag from the event. She was very well-behaved too, even lying in Joe’s lap while we watched the dogs perform.

After the frisbee dogs we headed home so Joe could catch the first Bears game of the season. I made my usual – brats (which we got from Costco this year) with kraut. Yum!

Arizona 2017 (8/28-9/02)

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Saturday (9/2) we came home from a five day trip out to Arizona to visit Joe’s family and we brought Wookie with us.

His mom recently found out she has cancer for the third time, this time in her uterus, so we wanted to visit her before her surgery which was on Thursday, 8/31. Despite having to be admitted to the hospital the day before because she wasn’t behaving normally (she could barely stay conscious and had trouble walking), she was cleared for surgery and everything went as well as could be expected for an almost 80-year-old woman.

Since this wasn’t actually a real vacation (it was too hot to do much anyway as it was over 100 degrees every day), we didn’t plan any activities and spent most of our time just hanging out or eating at restaurants since Joe’s parents no longer cook. We ended up dining at Village Inn four times over our 5-day visit. It would have been five times if Joe’s mom hadn’t gone to the hospital Wednesday since that’s where his dad wanted to have dinner because he’s a creature of habit. The place is like a Bakers Square although the decor isn’t as nice. That being said, the food was decent, and the staff was friendly, so there’s that.

We were able to convince Joe’s day to accompany us and our niece and her family to Backyard Taco for Taco Tuesday where all he would try is the flan because he doesn’t care for tacos. It was a bit irksome when I asked the girl if any of their tacos came with cilantro, she told me no, and lo and behold there was cilantro all over the pork taco, but other than that the food was flavorful. Plus I don’t mind cilantro, but Joe doesn’t care for it and we were sharing. The pork had pineapple pieces in it and the steak tacos were pretty good as well. The only taco that was bland was the chicken. I liked that they had a salsa bar for any toppings you wanted to add. A funny thing happened there – our niece’s daughter, O, who is only two years old, chucked a plastic fork and it landed right in the crook of this girl’s arm at the table next to us. That girl has quite the arm! She managed to peg me in the forehead with a goldfish cracker sometime during the week and it actually stung!

Our Week

Monday afternoon – Arrived at Sky Harbor, got picked up by niece and her daughter, went home to drop off luggage, went to In-And-Out for food
Monday evening – Village Inn for dinner with Joe’s dad & niece’s family

Tuesday morning – Village Inn for breakfast with Joe’s parents
Tuesday afternoon – Drinks & a corndog @ Sonic; played pool & shuffleboard at clubhouse since internet was down
Tuesday evening – Backyard Taco for dinner

Wednesday morning – Lolo’s Chicken & Waffles with Joe’s dad (he liked the iced tea and waffles)
Wednesday afternoon – Joe’s mom was acting strange so we called Joe’s niece (she is medical POA)
Wednesday evening – Red Robin for dinner with Joe’s dad, sister, and niece’s daughter. We brought food to niece who had driven Joe’s mom to the hospital and had her admitted.

Thursday morning – Breakfast at Village Inn with Joe’s dad before heading to the hospital
Thursday afternoon – At hospital
Thursday evening – Picked up pizza from Salerno’s on the way home; woman who we adopted Wookie from came over to visit while Joe and his dad went to the clubhouse to use the internet

Friday morning – Breakfast at Linda’s Hoosier Cafe with Joe’s dad (we met the owner and her son), then accompanied niece & her husband to her ultrasound appointment (she’s 6 months pregnant with her second daughter). It was really cool seeing the baby! Joe’s dad left him an impatient voicemail just as we arrived back at the trailer at 10:35 to pick him up even though we had told him we’d be back between 10:30 and 11:00 am.
Friday afternoon – Visited Joe’s mom in the hospital, then after dropping his dad off at home went out for snacks. I ordered a tall green tea lemonade from Starbucks but they screwed up and charged me for a grande, then upgraded me for free to a trenta which is 30 oz! I shouldn’t have drank the whole thing but it was really good (I paid for it later at the pool when I almost had a panic attack so I’m guessing it’s either caffeine or sugar that could be a trigger). Joe got a shake from In-and-Out and we went to his sister’s house to hook up her Wii & computer. Despite having never peed in anyone’s house before, Wookie peed on her bedroom rug. Whoops! Afterwards we stopped at Jack In The Box to try their nuggets but they don’t know how to count and gave us 4 instead of 5 so we ended up with 9 total after Joe complained. They were decent but not worth $2 for 5 nuggets.
Friday evening – Dinner at Village Inn with Joe’s dad, sister, niece, and her daughter

Saturday morning – Flew home

Flight Stuff

I swear the more I fly the worse I get. I thought after falling asleep on the flight home last year I would be less anxious but even with 1.5 mg of Xanax in me I was still very nervous during take off and landing. I can’t stand the low altitude turns and both flights had periods of turbulence which required them to turn the seatbelt sign on. Coming into Arizona there was one part where the plane felt like it “dropped” considerably which scared me enough that I made an audible noise so Joe teased me about that. The takeoff on the flight home freaked me out because there was considerable vibrating when we first got airborne that I don’t recall hearing/feeling before. Even Joe later remarked it was unusual to him. We paid extra to upgrade our boarding position on that flight and ended up sitting forward of the wings whereas on the way out we had sat behind the wings. I think ideally I’d like to sit over the wings in the future. I also had to keep going pee on the flight home (3-4 times!) whereas on the flight out I only went twice.

At least Wookie was very well-behaved in her carrier for both flights. More than a few people remarked how quiet she was when we were waiting for our flight home. Sky Harbor has a really nice animal relief area too. Wookie wasn’t interested in using it, but I liked how it’s located after you go through security. We met a cute black Brussels Griffon named Pickles in there. It’s a large room near the restrooms that has fake grass, a fire hydrant, poop bags, and a sink. In contract, Midway airport has an outdoor fenced-in concrete area over by baggage claim before you go through security. It makes no sense.

TSA Hates Me

The worst thing about our trip is that I was singled out by TSA at Midway. First they swabbed my hands but apparently they didn’t like the results so they pulled me aside for a full pat-down and went through my carry-on bag. I got picked for a hand swab at Sky Harbor too but luckily that’s as far as it went. The security lady was giving me attitude, however, because I was trying to keep an eye on my jacket going through the x-ray instead of walking all the way down to where she was pointing. She kept ordering me to leave my things alone even though I wasn’t trying to touch them so finally I yelled “I’m just trying to keep an eye on my stuff!” Seriously! Thank god Joe was there to keep an eye on my stuff since I had the dog in my arms too. Someone could have easily grabbed my stuff since no one was paying attention to it since they were so concerned about what a threat I apparently was. *rolls eyes*

Observations

It got so hot during the day the asphalt would bubble and pop when you drove over it.
None of the stores or restaurants were overly air-conditioned like they are here. Probably because they can’t afford it! The only exception was the hospital.

Final Thoughts

All in all it was an interesting trip but I would never visit Arizona in August/September again unless absolutely necessary. It was so hot you couldn’t do anything outside unless you got up super early or stayed up late, and even then it was already in the mid 80’s. We slept in the trailer’s Arizona room which wasn’t as air conditioned as the rest of the trailer so the flannel pants and sweatshirts I brought were useless. I purchased a very large suitcase the weekend before at TJ Maxx for $70 which was perfect for all my stuff plus Wookie’s.

We borrowed a crate and fencing from the girl we adopted her from who lives across the street but Wookie refused to step foot in the crate so she slept on some fleece on the ground. We also ordered a potty pad holder that we had shipped directly there and which she used faithfully. The heat seemed to affect her appetite like it did us and she only ate about half the amount of food I brought. For the most part she got along with everyone except niece’s daughter since she’s not used to children. She also would bark at Joe’s dad since he wasn’t home when we first arrived so in her mind he was an intruder. That being said, by Thursday she was running around his legs wagging her tail. She got along ok with Bella even though they didn’t play together, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about her previous mom’s (whom she didn’t remember) dog. Everyone seemed to enjoy playing with her, though, and she was mostly well behaved except when we’d leave her locked up to go out. Once she realized we were actually leaving the house entirely she would calm down, however. Hopefully next time we travel we can leave her with someone we trust because while it wasn’t a big deal on this particular trip, I can’t see having her with us on a real vacation. Plus it’s $95 each way on Southwest even though she takes the place of a free carry-on.

Indiana Beach 2017

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This year we decided to visit Indiana Beach on a Sunday. Since the car rental places aren’t open on Sundays we opted not to rent a van and planned to take two cars. Brother # 2 contemplated coming along and would have driven me and Brother # 1 while Joe would have the kids and ES, but then my brother bailed because he found out he has Lyme disease, started medication over the weekend, and (understandably) wanted to take it easy.

The revised plan was for me to drive my other brother and myself but then Joe’s son, E, bailed as well. So that’s how we all ended up crammed into Joe’s Escape. ES sat up front since he’s the biggest of everyone and I sat between K and my brother. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might be although I’m sure the Xanax I took that morning helped. We were mostly right on schedule other than the extra wait at K’s place while ES tried to locate his missing annual pass.

Indiana Beach Sign

Even so we arrived at the park right before they opened at 11 am which is not easy when they are an hour ahead of us. We opted to park in the free lot since we didn’t bring food but just a cooler with drinks. We managed to sneak some water bottles inside and made the Taco Shoppe our first stop. Everyone had two tacos except K who got a walking taco.

Tacos

Rides I ended up going on: Den of Lost Thieves, bumper cars (twice), Growler, train, carousel, Music Express. The first ride would have been better had the “guns” worked. No fun when you can’t shoot any of the targets to animate them. The Growler would have also been more fun if our car was able to spin. I didn’t want to spin too much, but it wouldn’t spin AT ALL.

Rides I wanted to go on but didn’t because a) I was worried about my balance issues or b) I didn’t want to get wet: Scrambler, Flume, Bumper Boats.

Lame, I know. Know what else is lame? Finding out the old game tickets and Cool Cash cards from previous years were not accepted. Even lamer? The new Cool Cash card we purchased was only good for the season so we ended up blowing $11 playing Skee-Ball just to ensure there wasn’t any money left on it. Even lamer still? The dumb puzzle game I got just to use up our “tickets” (electronically stored on the card).

In between rides we noshed on some Pronto Pups (aka corn dogs) and everyone except me got ice cream as well. On the way out of the park (around 4 pm) we stopped at the Taco Shoppe and grabbed tacos to go which we ate back at the car so we could wash them down with water/pop from our cooler.

The weather was warm but comfortable the entire afternoon and for the most part I didn’t feel too sweaty. Didn’t get burned either since we slathered on the sunscreen when we arrived.

While the visit was more enjoyable than I anticipated, I doubt we’ll be going back next year. I’m kinda over that park. It definitely looked even nicer than last year because just about everything was freshly painted (lot of orange was used in particular), but the rides still weren’t operating properly and most were either too intense or too childish for my tastes. Perhaps Disney has spoiled me but the only really appealing thing about Indiana Beach for Joe and me nowadays are the tacos. Since they are now open on the weekends through the end of October we MAY go back one more time just to walk around and get tacos but for a 2+ hour drive I don’t think that it’s worth the effort. Hopefully the kids and my brother won’t pester us to go next year. The main reason we felt obligated to go this year was because we had last year’s season passes that were also good for 2017.

» All Indiana Beach photos

Interesting notes/observations:
This one kid promptly fell flat on his face after getting out of his bumper car. I felt bad for him but it was also funny.
We had to get off the expressway in Indiana and take the side streets through Gary (ew) since traffic was so bad.
After dropping Brother # 1 off we had dinner at Culvers. Apparently all that theme park food wasn’t enough for us?!?!
Total out of pocket for food: $100 (since Joe paid for most of it other than Brother # 1’s Pronto Pup, nachos, and Dippin Dots).

Milwaukee Brewfest 2017

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Saturday my brother came over to watch Wookie so we could attend the Milwaukee Brewfest in Wisconsin with our friends KM and EN. We drove up together in Joe’s car and our friends were kind enough to treat us to lunch at Oscar’s Bar and Grill (which we first discovered back in February 2016). I was feeling off thanks to lack of sleep courtesy of a severe panic attack episode the night before so I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and ended up eating it sans bun. They have awesome fries but I went easy on them since I didn’t want to trigger any issues. I felt weird enough having to urinate so often including making a pitstop on the ride up even though it only takes about an hour and a half. It was a little longer, however, since we ran into traffic jams like three times. Luckily we left plenty early enough and still arrived at the fest before it began.

The on-site parking was only $5 which is awesome. Even though KM and I had designated driver wristbands ($15) and mostly sat around chatting and people-watching, I still had a pretty good time. Joe and EN certainly enjoyed themselves and even though there were 100 different vendors there only managed to sample about twenty beers. They had food trucks there which was cool since KM and I weren’t keen on the hot dog meal that came with our admission and gave ours to the boys. I got a personal pizza from the Palermos truck and KM got some cheese curds. Both were good.

This is the souvenir glass they gave to everyone at the entrance

We ended up leaving around 6:15 since I still wasn’t feeling so hot and KM agreed to drive Joe’s Escape (I was supposed to). We stopped for even MORE food (LOL) at the Brat Stop since neither of our friends had ever been there before. I didn’t actually get anything to eat since I wasn’t hungry. I believe by the time we got home it was around 10 pm and Wookie had been by herself about 5 hours by that point since B took off just before 5 pm. I’m so glad he and his girlfriend are ok with watching her occasionally since I don’t like the idea of leaving her with a stranger or in a boarding facility. Not sure what we’ll do when we want to go on an actual multi-day vacation, though. I hope by then they have a house (they are currently looking) and their dog gets along with Wookie so she can stay with them. Fingers crossed.

One of the cool things about the fest is they included a free ticket to Germanfest which was going on just 2 miles down the road. We didn’t get to take advantage of that, but if the two fests coincide next year, the plan is for KM and I to have Joe and EN pass those tickets to us through the festival fence and take an Uber over there. We’ll come back to pick up the boys when their festival is over.

Pierogi Fest 2017

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Joe took Friday off so we could take my brother to Pierogi Fest in Whiting, Indiana. Since we were going to be gone most of the day I arranged for B’s girlfriend R to watch Wookie. She arrived around 8 am so I could show her where Wookie’s food and water was, how to lock her up in her playpen when she was ready to leave, etc. Joe was teasing me because I had put together a 2-sided care sheet but what can I say? I was nervous having never left Wookie in anyone’s care before.

We all ate some apple fritters Joe brought home the day before before he and I left the house around 9 am.

We were very prepared this time around – I had extra plastic utensils, napkins, and salt and pepper with me in addition to our usual bottled water. The plastic knife in particular came in handy since they only give out forks. We arrived just before the official opening at 11 am and secured parking two blocks away near the church. Most of the main street where we used to park in previous years was already blocked by chairs people were using to hold their spot for the parade later that evening. Most lots were charging $20 to park which is just ridiculous!

We made our way through the fest to our first stop which, of course, was Dan’s Pierogis. They were woefully unprepared and despite getting there early and standing in a rather short line, we had to wait another 30 minutes for our food because most of the flavors weren’t ready yet. As if they don’t know they are the most popular booth there? They couldn’t have started preparing them sooner? Ugh. I ended up getting some taco pierogis from the Mendoza truck to tide me over while we waited. I love them! Even though they charge 75 cents extra for some salsa and sour cream it’s totally worth it.

We located seating in the shade by the nearby elementary school so that was nice since we spent a good hour, if not more, there. I ended up speaking to an older woman in a three person group who shared our picnic table. She seemed nice enough even though Joe indicated I may have offended her later when I loudly remarked that someone must not be able to read since I smelled cigarette smoke – apparently it was her and one of the guys. Oh well. It did say “non-smoking family seating” on the sign there. Ironic considering how she was remarking earlier about all the people who brought their dogs even though online it said no dogs allowed (they probably should have posted signs, though). Honestly, I don’t think she was offended, or maybe didn’t hear me, since when we left she was very friendly saying goodbye and wishing us a nice day and I didn’t detect any sarcasm.

We left the fest around 2 pm and stopped at the grocery store so J could get toothpaste, and then stopped for food at this little place called Chicago Pita Kitchen where we’ve eaten before. I did not care for my cheeseburger but the feta fries were delicious. Joe liked his Italian sausage sandwich but the fries in general there suck because they are undercooked.

My mom put together a birthday cheesecake for Joe.

We played three games of Aggravation at my parents house and got home around 8 pm. At that point Wookie had been alone for maybe three hours so not bad at all.

Note to self: do NOT get the stuffed cabbage from Dan’s Pierogis. It is completely flavorless.