We did play!
Sunday after we got home, we had a garage purge session. We tossed out two barrels full of junk and put aside two two bikes the boys had outgrown. Bill helped me list them on Letgo but we agreed that if they didn’t sell by Tuesday, we would donate them to a bike coop. After finishing up the garage, we went to a new-to-us Mexican restaurant called Nachos Grill. It’s a hole in the wall with really authentic flavors. Bill ordered a dish with grilled steak, chicken, cactus and chorizo and accompanied with rice, beans, green bell peppers, lettuce, sour cream and pico de gallo. It was served on a lava stone molcajete. That’s his dish above. Yum!
By Tuesday afternoon, the bikes had not sold so we loaded them up and drove to Bloomington to donate them to the Bloomington Bike Project. While that was probably a farther distance than some might travel to make a donation, we really wanted to support its cause. BBP’s a non-profit that helps get recycled bikes back into the community. Folks can go there and work on their bikes using their coop’s tools. Additionally, people can earn bikes by volunteering hours. That’s right up our alley.
At the bike coop, we got a restaurant suggestion for Greek food. Topo’s 403 did not disappoint. It was located across the street from the IU School of Informatics & Computing. Since I’m currently working on another t-shirt quilt for a gal who graduated from this school, I snapped the photo. The Topo’s menu featured upscale Greek food and boy, was it good. The flavors were incredible and the presentation was highly crafted. We will definitely add this restaurant to our list of B-town favorites.
Wednesday Bill worked but we skipped town on Thursday and went on an Illinois adventure. We drove up to Chicago and timed our arrival for lunch at the Original Soul Vegetarian, a restaurant Bill heard about from a nurse at one of the hospitals.
I wish we had been a bigger group so we could have ordered more dishes to share. It was hard to narrow down our choices but we loved what we ordered.
From there we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. The museum was really packed and it was not because it was opening day at Lollapalooza. It was exciting to hang out with Jackson Pollock’s Greyed Rainbow.
Bill was eager to see Georges Seurat’s painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. This was, of course, one of the iconic paintings from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. What Bill is viewing here is a sketch of the actual painting hanging on the opposing wall. The Sunday Seurat is actually many times larger than the sketch, measuring almost 7 feet by 11 feet.
I don’t recall the name or artist of this lock but it was incredibly intricate. I cannot imagine the time it took to master the details.
We tried to capture this lady photographing her companion who had staged a stuffed dog in their photos. Was it their take on Flat Stanley?
Bill and I both admired this painting. What was remarkable was that On Kawara painted this without stencils. It’s one of a series of more than two thousand such date paintings. Maybe after that many paintings I too would have such a steady hand?
Seeing this light swing made us wish we could put it with the plug from St. Louis.
After seeing all we wanted to see, we left the museum and made our way over to Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder for dinner.
We arrived at the restaurant about five and there was already a large crowd outside. Bill walked in to put our name on the list. When he texted me to come in, I expected him to tell me that because we were only a party of two, we were getting seated right away. How wrong I was. It turned out that the maître d’ told him they did not keep a written list. He would remember the order we came in and call us for our table in an hour. We were hesitant to leave our place in his line of sight so we stood there and watched him repeat the same speech to each and every guest who arrived.
It turned out the maître d’ knew exactly what he was doing. Shortly before our hour was up, he seated us. We ordered right away having had plenty of time to look at the menu while we waited. We ordered the house salad and an individual Pizza Pot Pie to share. The salad was an extremely generous serving and the pizza pot pie was rich and delicious. We left with happy bellies and headed off to East Moline for part two of our getaway adventure. Stay tuned…
Interesting and fun-filled day!