Illinois

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Notes From The Road

Posted by tokenhippygirl on April 17, 2013
Posted in: Eats, LiFe, Travel. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 comment

We’ve been back home now for a few days, but before we actually arrived here, on the last day of our anniversary road trip, Karen and I made a little list of stuff as we were driving.  Notes about things we saw, stuff we did, people we met, etc.  So without further ado, here it is… our notes from the road.

Alright, maybe not just yet… before I unleash the rest of this post I just want to say that having Karen in my life has been a miraculous thing.  We are so lucky to have  found each other.  It’s a beautiful thing to have been together for 10 years and still feel, and in fact feel more strongly, such a huge love for each other.  It’s also a lovely thing to be “married” to your best friend.  There’s no one either of us would rather hang out with, and amazingly we both feel that way and want to share everything.  It’s wonderful and amazing.  I am beyond lucky, and I know it.

OK… here we go… some notes from the road…

2795.6 miles travelled.

“I bet this would be really pretty if the trees were leafed out”

Favorite coffee: Comet Coffee in Ann Arbor… Pour over, so good.

Favorite espresso: Jimmy’s, Kensington Market location, in Toronto… Americano… Yum!

Favorite City: Portland, ME with Toronto a close second.

Favorite public transport: the Red Rocket in Toronto.

Favorite fish and chips: Susan’s in Portland.  A place that was once  a gas station.

Favorite beach: Kennebunkport (heart rock beach).

Favorite countryside: Coast of Maine, Vermont‘s Green Mountains, and New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Favorite meal Tam: Montpelier at the Three Penny Taproom… chicken stew with pastry.

Favorite meal Karen: Hot Suppa! in Portland, Maine… fried chicken and sweet potatoes.

Favorite ice cream: Dot’s Ice cream in Bath, Maine.   Second place, for atmosphere, Jumpin’ Jacks near Schenectady, NY

Favorite little town: Bath, Maine.

Favorite B&B : Mayor Lord’s B&B in Meadville, PA.

Most comfy bed: Marriott in Portland Maine.

Best unexpected stop:  Williamstown, MA and Williams College… Tunnel City Coffee in the town where Thomas went to school.

Favorite zen moment: marina in Portland, sitting on a bench, chatting, looking at the water, 65 degrees and sunny.

Most interesting historical spot: Fryeburg Academy in Maine and Concord Grape Belt, NY.

Favorite tourist attraction: Herb Brooks Hockey Arena and ski jumping site from 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, NY.

Biggest disappoinent: Niagara Falls… Ghetto. Should’ve gone to the Canadian side.

Most interesting fact: ice wine made from grapes that have gone through first freeze… sold in Canada.

Best breakfast: The Senator in Toronto… both food and atmosphere.

Most authentic eating experience: House of Gourmet in Chinatown, Toronto with it’s all Asian crowd, huge menu in Chinese, and hanging meat.

Bump in the road: rental car malfunction in Albany Ny resulting in car exchange at Albany International Airport.

Best fast food: Eddie’s Footlong Hot Dogs in Meadville, PA.

Noisiest hotel: The Stockdale Inn, Schenectady, NY due to wedding party.

My honey’s big disappointment: not getting a green rock from Vermont.

Interesting natural wonder: rock by lighthouse at Cape Elizabeth, Maine… it looked like wood (we took some).

Life changing moment during trip: sale of Scappoose house.

Personal family moment: driving by the home in Jackson, Michigan where my great grandparents lived when my grandma was born and driving by the memorial site of the hospital where she was born.

Finding great heart rock.

“Pompous grass”

The accent of toll booth guy in N.H.

Coffee at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport (if driving by while drinking coffee counts).

Conversing with people at bed and breakfast who lived in India for a time.

States and Countries visited: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Michigan

Coffee shops visited: 14.

Number of rude people met along the way: 2.  Woman at some gas station in Maine who was terse about bathroom facilities and man at rental car place in Savoy when we picked up the car for the trip.

Favorite souvenirs: raven lunatic t-shirt and huge red lobster.

First drink in three years: strawberry mojito at Hot Suppa! on our anniversary.

Signs for moose, bear, and Amish seen… No actual moose, bear or Amish spotted.

Wildlife spotted: flock of wild turkeys in Maine, sea birds.

Worst weather: Lake Placid… cold and a tad snowy.

“Ride the Red Rocket”

Laughs out loud: too many to count.

Music: 936 songs on shuffle… No repeats… Maine and Back Again Playlist. Awesomeness.

Reminiscing about 10 years together… Priceless.

On routes (Canada’s much nicer version of the rest area).

Nicest person: VIA rail employee in Toronto who walked us a couple of blocks to Union Station and then to where we needed to go inside the station… We told him we wished we could’ve taken him home as souvenir!

Honorable mentions for nicest person: Jimmy’s coffee barista who gave us free croissants, girl at on route stop who talked to us about the toll, red rocket driver, the hotel dude who pointed toward good ice cream in Schenectady, hotel guy in Portland Maine who answered our questions, rental car guy, Steve, at Albany Imternational Airport, also guy in Albany rental car park who let us store our belongings in little locked kiosk while we walked in to get our new rental car.  Lots of nice people along the way.

Best hotel location: tie between Bond Place Hotel, Toronto for great access to transit and downtown, and Portland, Maine Marriott for walking proximity to old port and view of the bay.

Biggest panic moment: when my honey thought she lost her wallet in Lake Placid… It was not lost.

Second biggest panic moment: not having any money for toll to get back into U.S. over Ambassador Bridge and first ATM didn’t work. Thought we might have to learn to speak French.

Frozen Lake Erie was amazing.

Largest Globe we’ve ever seen: Eartha at Delorme.

 

Driving Back From O’Hare

Posted by tokenhippygirl on May 24, 2012
Posted in: Illinois, LiFe, Music, Video. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

I took Martin to the airport on Monday. It’s a long drive, nearly three hours one way. The drive was uneventful and the weather was gorgeous. On the way home I decided to semi-document the drive. I recently found a case with a bunch of old mix CDs I’d made. We’ve been working our way around that case since the find. I had one in on Monday. So here it is… Illinois countryside, in bits, accompanied by the track that happened to be playing at the time. There are a few of these, peruse them at your leisure, or not. I find this amusing… but then I would. It combines music, driving, and a bit of the tech stuff I love. The first video is a tad long. Feel free to skip part of it should you need to move on. This is just one of the quirky things I find myself doing. Enjoy…

What a Weekend… I’m Exhausted!

Posted by tokenhippygirl on October 24, 2011
Posted in: Eats, Family & Friends, Illinois, Out and About, Photos, Riley, Weston. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 comment

We had such a fantastic weekend.  So great that I’m tired today.  OK, maybe to be more accurate I should say that I’m partially tired from having to get up in the middle of the night to the let the dogs out.  For some reason, and this is a rare event, they both had to go out.  There’s the little girlie getting up for water and then not jumping back in the bed.  Bad sign.  I got up to find her and she was waiting in the hallway for me.  She ran over to the doggie door and then I heard Weston coming along as well.  I opened the door, they go out, and there I am peeking through the curtains over the sliders trying to see them out in the backyard at four in the morning.  Too funny.  So I could be tired from that.  But, the weekend was so busy, so much fun, and tiring in a totally good way as well.

It started Friday night with a Gal Up (a group we’ve found and joined) event at a local bar, the Esquire Lounge in downtown Champaign.  Drink, food, talk, pool playing, and good times had by all.  A great night with cool women.  Saturday we got up early to go watch Sebastian’s first swimming lesson here in the U.S.  He’s somewhat of a swimming lesson expert as he’s been in them since he was like three months old or something in the U.K.  But it’s been a little while since he’s been in the pool, so he was a tad cautious.  He had a big hold on Mary most of the time.  He didn’t cry, but he was unsure.  By the end though he was a champ, showing that now famous smile all over the place.  He’s going to be great and it was such a blast watching him, and watching Mary be such a fantastic Mom with him when he was unsure and scared and such.  Makes a person tear up watching the kid be so good with her kid.  Impressive.  After the swim lesson we took a jaunt over to Einstein Bagels with the kids to have a little bagel breakfast and then went over to their house for a bit to visit with Ashley, one of Mary’s friends and bridesmaids, who was visiting for the weekend from Indianapolis, where she’s living now.  It was really nice to see her.  Ashley recently got married, the wedding the kids went to over the weekend we did our overnight babysitting for the first time.   After we left the kid’s place we came home, picked up the pups, and headed out to Mahomet and a lovely new to us walking trail out there.  A great spot to walk them.  There are numerous trails to hit so it will be fun to go back out there and see what’s what with those.  On Saturday we only walked for about a mile, one way, because it was really sunny, with no shade, and Weston doesn’t much like the heat.  He was panting and kept trying to lay down in close to the tall grass.  We couldn’t keep going so we turned around, but they got a nice walk in anyway.  Afterward we came home and just enjoyed being here.  Watched some of the World Series, ate dinner followed by caramel corn, relaxed.  Nice.

Yesterday we had a nice mellow morning at home.  Brewed and drank some coffee, we each looked at our fantasy football teams and adjusted (we played each other this week), drank more coffee, pet on the pups a lot, and lounged in our living room.  Later we’d finally had enough of that lounging stuff and took the pups for a long walk.  We discovered a great area on campus only about a 15 minute walk from our house.  Fantastic.  It’s near the Arboretum, which includes the Idea Garden, and Japan House.  So great.  There’s an actual hill over there.  You can see out a ways.  We plan on going back to the garden with a camera to get some ideas.  It is the idea garden after all.  We also plan on taking the pups back over there again.  It’s so close to our house.  It’s so cool that we keep finding all these great places to take the dogs for walks.  We’re loving that.  After the walk we met up with Ann, one of our new friends here in Illinois, and drove out to Hardy’s Reindeer Ranch where we met other peeps and then all did the corn maze.  We ended up splitting into two groups and raced each other.  Texting the other group with things like… Number 5!  There were eight punch stations to get in the maze and we were racing to see which group could get them all first.  We were ahead most of the time, until the end, when they managed to squeak by us for the win.  Damn Dracula! Where were you?!?!  We also looked at the reindeer, the pumpkins, and watched the pumpkin cannon shoot a pumpkin out into a field.  The cannon was pretty impressive.  A fun time with great ladies.  After the Reindeer Ranch we headed home again, hung with the pups for a little bit, and then went over to the kid’s place for dinner.  We played with the grandson, ate some food, and watched the beginning of World Series game four with the kids before heading home where we loved on the pups and finished watching the game.

Whew.

A lot of stuff…. a busy weekend.  Fun.  Illinois is growing on us.  We love the adventure of discovering things in a new place.  We are loving… and let me say… L-O-V-I-N-G… the fall weather here.  Beautiful blue skies, gorgeous fall colors, and warmish (enough to be in t-shirts yesterday).  We are loving being close to the kids and getting to see Sebastian all the time, go to his little classes, hang out and play.  And we are finding some friends, getting to know some people, starting to make a life here.  We still miss everyone in Oregon tremendously, but we are starting to really settle in, and excited about all the new things we’ve yet to discover and do.  Everything is an adventure when you live in a new place.  It’s kinda cool….

A Few photos from the ol’ iPhone…

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Falling For Illinois

Posted by tokenhippygirl on October 13, 2011
Posted in: Eats, Family & Friends, Illinois. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

It’s a rainy, windy, blustery, wet day here in Illinois.  It started yesterday, the blue sky fading as the clouds came in and the rain and wind started up.  It reminds me of an Oregon Fall.  Loads of rain, gray skies, everything just getting soaked.

It’s a cup of coffee read a book kind of day.  Though I just did the cup of coffee part.  Otherwise I was catching up on email and Facebook “stuff”.  Loving on the dogs… like I am right now, excuse me as I pet Weston for a moment… OK, back.

Tonight we head to the kids house with Black Dog Smoke and Ale House BBQ in hand.  No date night this week.  We are just back from our trip so the kids are going to stay home with us and we’re going to hang out.  We’re looking forward to it.

Had a great visit last evening with Karen’s aunt and uncle.  I’d never met them and it had been a long time since she’d seen them.  It’s a perk of living here.  They travel from their home in Minnesota to their son and daughter in law’s place in Atlanta twice a year.  We’re on the route.  It was so lovely to meet them and spend some time getting to know them a little.  I enjoyed their company.

OK… time to pet Weston again.  He’s being a tad needy, but I don’t mind… who can resist that look of love.  Not I, that’s for sure.  I love this little guy…. and his cutie little sister.

 

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The House

Posted by tokenhippygirl on September 22, 2011
Posted in: LiFe. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

So Karen and I realized we’ve lived here just about five weeks.  We are finally getting things sort of settled, though there’s still some wallpaper border to remove and definitely painting to be done.  I took a little tour of the house, snapping shots as I went, so that we could share what the place is looking like now.  Keep in mind… the dots in the office are going, as is the wallpaper border in the dining room, as is the color in the media room and the spare bedroom.  We have a few more things to hang on the walls… including a tryptic we just ordered of a shot I took of Chicago that’s going to hang down in the media room.  Can’t wait to get that baby.  Will be cool.  Obviously we haven’t hung anything up in the office or the spare bedroom either, again due to the fact that we haven’t painted anything yet.

Uh, the picture quality isn’t the best… I was doing this on the fly and not really paying attention.  My honey will hate that the bed isn’t fully made in the bedroom photos and that there are blankets thrown about down in the media room as well as in the living room, but hey… this is how we live most of the time.

Our yard is fantastic.  Pretty big.  We like it.  Our garage, which I didn’t shoot at all, is about a car and a half.  Plenty of room for the car and for tools, storage, and such.  I’ll shoot that next time I make some rounds.  I also didn’t shoot the side yard, street side, that’s beautiful.  Oh well… looks like I left a few things out.  Next time…

Martin called our style bohemian.  We like it.  He’s right.  We don’t like any particular style.  We like what we like and buy what we like and somehow it all fits together.

When and as things get painted and wallpaper gets removed I will take more photos.  You know, when the house is completely done.  I’ll try to make those more house beautiful.  For now… this is it… our place in Illinois.

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Hunting For The Amish, And Other Tall Tales

Posted by tokenhippygirl on September 13, 2011
Posted in: Illinois, LiFe, Out and About. Tagged: , , , , . 1 comment

Last weekend Karen and I had ourselves a little adventure.  It started with a drive and a visit to Arcola, Illinois.  A little burg that’s South of Urbana on Hwy 57.  They have an annual festival called the Arcola Corn Broom Festival where you can get loads of things from booths, vendor food of all sorts, and yes… corn brooms.  We heard of this festival, I don’t know where, and had to check it out.  C’mon… a festival dedicated to corn brooms…. who could resist?

Off we went in search of a corn broom and low and behold… we found one.  A lovely one.  A very nice one.  A red and green one.  It’s cool.  We love it.  But that wasn’t all…

We wanted to check out the hippie memorial as well, but because of the festival there was a band playing near the memorial preventing us from getting close enough to take photos.  Bummer.  We will have to go back.  So instead of the hippie memorial we went to plan B… we decided to go check out a place we’d seen that sells adirondack chairs in different colors.  Very cool chairs.  We want to get some, especially since we found out they are made of composite.  Really great.

After the chairs, or really on the way to the chairs, we  noticed that there were a lot of Amish around.  Karen’s phrase of the day was… wow, it’s really Amishy around here.  We laughed so hard after she said that.  Arcola is in Illinois Amish country.  It was Sunday and after church.  We decided we needed a photo of the Amish.  Karen tried a few times and missed.  She’s a great photographer, but she needs time.  She’s not a snap on the fly kind of girl, so it was a struggle.  We laughed and laughed because she kept sticking the camera out the window and either not taking it in time or getting the wheel only or not taking it at all because we’d passed them.  We laughed so hard we cried.  We wondered aloud if the Amish might be offended by our attempts at photographing them.  Here we were, a blue Volvo speeding by with a camera sticking out the window.  We figured they probably were used to it and besides which, they make a lot of their money from the tourist trade in one way or another.  I hope they weren’t offended.

Finally our attempts were successful.  Or successful enough.  We got some shots.  Gotta love perseverance and a point and shoot Canon SD750.

After hunting the Amish, which sounds much worse writing it like that than is meant, we took some backroads part of the way home.  Driving out in the middle of corn fields in Illinois is sort of an isolating feeling.  Made more so by the fact that more than half the time you get no cell reception what so ever.  Here’s hoping to never get stuck out in the middle of nowhere.  We’d have to walk to a farm and ask to use the phone, like in the olden days when there were no cell phones.  It’s rural… and literally in the middle of nowhere.  But, it’s beautiful.  Really.  Quite stunning in places.

On another note, since this is my blog and I can change paddles in the middle of the stream, or whatever that saying is…  we got our new living room furniture today.  Yippee!  I’ve included a photo just because.  We still have to hang the rest of our art and such and do some painting, but it’s looking like home.  It’s nice…

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A Cheese Festival, The Amish, Children’s Museum in Decatur, Barbecues, and a First Birthday

Posted by tokenhippygirl on September 9, 2011
Posted in: Eats, Family & Friends, Illinois, LiFe, Riley, Weston. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

We have had a full week here in Illinois.  Loads of barbecuing at both our house and over at Mary and Martin’s, we went to a cheese festival in Arthur Illinois, which also happens to be in Amish Country so we saw loads of Amish (a first for both of us).  We even bought some Amish goods here at our Saturday Market at the Square this last Saturday when we finally made it over there (yummy cinnamon bread… so good).  We went to the Children’s museum in Decatur and made big bubbles and watched the little boy climb up and down the little slide and pull and pull the fake wooden garden vegetables out of the fake wooden garden.  I had another blow draw (numbers normal… yay!) and a shot this week.  Karen put together the spring thunder horse so Sebastian could ride on it the way Mary did when she was a wee sprout.  Karen saved it all this time just for this moment… when her daughter would have a child and he/she could ride it.  It brought tears to both of our eyes.  We took the dogs in for their first vet appointment to get them checked for heart worm (clear!) and get another round of heart worm meds for them.  We went on a few walks with the pups at Meadowbrook Park (our favorite in town), once with a couple of people we met through the UP Center (LGBT center in town).  And we celebrated Sebastian’s first birthday two days ago.  Who can believe he’s one… wow!  We will be celebrating again tomorrow when some friends of Martin and Mary arrive and Mary makes some delicious spiced cupcakes in the shape of trucks.  Presents have already been opened, but there’s always time to have another celebration… especially when cake is involved!  We had our handyman over and he took the first step in eliminating the spindles between our kitchen and dining room.  Spindles out… now the finish work is all that’s left to do.  He’s coming back on Monday to take care of that.  We have him working on an estimate to put in a garage door opener and then we will have him give us an estimate for putting crown molding throughout the upper floor of the house.

We are adjusting to life in Illinois.  The weather has turned nice.  Cooler… much much less humidity, and cool nights!   We are loving it.  It’s been in the mid to upper 70′s during the day, and in the upper 40′s to lower 50′s at night.  We are actually wearing sweatshirts (with our shorts and flip flops of course… and my honey’s boot… so fashionable) once in awhile now.  I actually had a blanket on my lap last night as we sat down in our media room watching the first NFL game of the season.  My honey scored a load of points on her men in the game… her fantasy football year is off to a great start!

Now… we are going to take the pups and walk downtown to the Common Ground Food Co-op.  Time to get some organics, some deodorant, and maybe a snack for the walk back.  We have to wear sweatshirts… and, it may just rain on us.  We are not complaining!

Better Late Than Not At All

Posted by tokenhippygirl on September 1, 2011
Posted in: Family & Friends, Illinois, LiFe, Oregon, Photos, Riley, Weston. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

What follows are some shots, mostly taken by Karen, during our road trip east.  It was a tiring four days, but we got er done… as they say.  We were so lucky to have Mom and Sandy along to help out.  They were amazing and true champs!  People say this all the time, but in our case we totally mean it… we couldn’t have done it without them!  Thank you guys, you were wonderful traveling companions, and true champs of the road!  We love you!

Seven states, 2300 miles, three nights in hotels with four adults and two dogs, road food, great conversation, some beautiful scenery, more gas money into a big ol’ truck and a car than two girls ever want to pay for again, and no real issues… it was a tiring, but good trip east.

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10 Hours and Counting

Posted by tokenhippygirl on August 10, 2011
Posted in: LiFe, Travel. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

We are just about 10 hours from heading out on our journey toward Illinois and our little grandson (and his parents, let’s not forget).  Wow.  I can’t believe it’s here.  We’ve been planning on this and for this for a long long time.  Seems like it was so far away not that long ago… and again, here we are.

I don’t really know what to say other than… first stop, Pocatello Idaho, here we come.

Our Rental Truck

Posted by tokenhippygirl on July 26, 2011
Posted in: Illinois, LiFe. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

26 ft. Moving Trucks

Penske has the youngest fleet in the industry. Our late-model fleet meansimproved mileage, better overall performance, reliability and greater eco-friendliness.

Image of a Penske Moving Truck Rental - 26 ft.

Capacities and Dimensions

These capacities, dimensions and mileage are approximations and may vary by manufacturer. MPG can vary based on load, terrain and driving factors.

  • Interior dimensions of up to 25 ft. 2 in. long x up to 7 ft. 8 in. wide x up to 8ft. 1 in. high
  • Up to 194 sq. ft. of floor space
  • Up to 1,400 cu. ft. of storage space
  • Up to 8,370 lb. load capacity
  • 50 gal. diesel fuel tank (8-12 mpg diesel)

Features

Surrounded By Dogs

Posted by tokenhippygirl on July 8, 2011
Posted in: Family & Friends, Riley, Weston. Tagged: , , , . 3 comments

I am cracking up!

The schnoodles are laying next to and on me, sleeping and not sleeping.  They try to sleep, want attention for awhile, demand attention for a little longer, then go back to sleep again.  They both want to be touching me.  It’s cute… lovely…. warm… and sometimes, admittedly, sort of annoying.  But, then I look at them, in their little eyes, and the fleeting millisecond of annoyance turns right back to adoration and love.

Weston just got up and wandered off… maybe he “heard” me talking about him.  Or maybe just maybe he is getting restless before his Uncle Kevin comes home.  He LOVES his Uncle Kevin and always gets restless when it’s about that time… time for Kev to come on in.  Weston wanders, looks out the window, barks and runs out when he thinks it might be Uncle Kevin.  It’s cute.

Combine that with the fact that his Mamma is gone right now getting our house in Illinois, and he’s even more of a mess.  I’m sure he’s looking for her too.  Riley does that as well.  So do I for that matter.  We are all missing her.  Until she comes home it will be like this… the pups stuck to me, a bit restless, looking out the window, barking when they hear a noise that might be, is it, maybe….  Wanting pets, wanting love, wanting to make sure that if they are sleeping they are touching me somehow.  Riley is asleep next to me right now and has all four of her little paws up against my leg.  Adorable.

I am surrounded… by boxes, by stuff to pack, and by dogs…. beautiful little lovable dogs.

Hays, Kansas to Champaign/Urbana, Illinois

Posted by tokenhippygirl on June 19, 2011
Posted in: Family & Friends, Photos, Travel. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Kansas… what can I say? It was a L-O-N-G drive through Kansas. Eastern Kansas is beautiful… Western Kansas… not so much. But we were there, and there, and there. That’s how it seemed anyway. Ha! Because we started out a bit further back than originally planned the drive yesterday was the longest of the four driving days. But, we made it. Missouri was beautiful, and Illinois was as well. We were glad to have the driving over. Here are the pictures from that part of our trip… enjoy!

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First Stop Hood River

Posted by tokenhippygirl on June 15, 2011
Posted in: Eats, Family & Friends, Photos, Travel. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

First stop on the Parker sibling great American road trip… Oregon to Illinois… Finds outr intrepid adventurers in Hood River getting gas, a coffee refill, and subway healthy breakfast sandwichs. We are off to a great start folks…. And the sun is starting to peak through!

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Illinois? You Ask

Posted by tokenhippygirl on April 26, 2011
Posted in: Family & Friends, LiFe. Tagged: , , , . 5 comments
The Virginia Theatre in Downtown Champaign.

Image via Wikipedia

Karen and I have been looking at houses in Champaign/Urbana online.  For those of you who’ve been asking, and maybe for some of you who don’t know as of yet that this is going on… we are moving to Illinois.  Why?  Well, it’s pretty simple.  Mary and Martin, and our grandson Sebastian, are moving to Illinois, and we want to be closer to them.  Martin, our son in law, has accepted a teaching position with the University of Illinois.   It’s a great opportunity for him and for their family.

We are excited about living near them.  Karen and Mary realized recently they haven’t even lived in the same state, let alone same country, for ten years.  First Mary went off to University in St. Louis, then she stayed there after graduating to work as a research assistant for a couple of years, and finally she met Martin and moved to England with him.  Ten years is a long long time for two people who are so close to each other.  It will be great for them to be able to see each other.  And all of that doesn’t even cover how much we want to live close to our grandson, be a part of his life, watch him change and grow.  We want to hang out with him, be a family with him, get to love him up close, and have him know us.  It’s very important to us.

So we’ve decided to move… decided to make the huge decision to change our lives, leave the state I’ve always lived in, leave our friends, and my family.  It’s big, and we aren’t doing it lightly.  We’ve thought about this, a lot.  We think it’s the right thing for us right now.  There’s nothing more important than the people in our lives.  We will miss everyone here, tremendously, but we are embracing this new adventure and moving forward full steam ahead to be with another part of our family.

Illinois… cold winters, humid summers, the midwest.  It’s different.  Not somewhere we thought we’d go, but we are excited about it. Being somewhere new to us (well, Karen lived in Illinois when she was a kid for a couple of years so it’s not totally new to her, but she was pretty young, so this will seem new), experiencing what that part of the country has to offer, using that also as a jumping off point to so many other places on that side of the U.S.  We’ve already checked out the driving distance between Champaign/Urbana and many points over there.  It’s cool to think how many great spots are within an 8 hour drive.  Plus, we will be only a couple of hours from Chicago, which we fell in love with when we were there for the kid’s wedding.  There are trains every day to and from Chicago.  It’s going to be good.

We plan on coming back to Oregon every summer for a month or so, probably during the most humid month or even months in Illinois.  We have an advantage in that Karen can work from anywhere, which makes this possible in the first place.  That means we can come back for a month or two in the summer, staying with different people here, and she can work, not have to take vacation.  Plus, I know people will come see us.  Even if they don’t want to visit Champaign/Urbana, they will come to see Chicago, and we can meet them there.

It’s stressful… loads to coordinate, but so very good.  And for those wondering about my treatment, etc… we have talked to my oncologist.  He says people move all the time.  The only thing we have to make sure of is to give them enough time to get all my records together to send to the new doc and clinic.  Karen has talked to her HR about the change in insurance and we have a list of hematologists who work at a cancer center in Champaign/Urbana.  We are going to try and get a consultation appointment with one or more of them when we go to visit in June.  We will get all of it worked out.  My maintenance protocol is very common.

Visiting in June…. Karen, Mom, and I are flying there in June to check out the area, look at homes (hopefully buy one…), and meet one or two doctors.  We have a few days.  We’re flying into Chicago and then driving.  We’re excited about that as well.  Never been there, new place.  We love new places.  We love exploring.

So there you have it… the big news.  The big change.  The big… big.