Events of Monday, August 30, 2010

          After enjoying the final gems of my Aunt Linda’s and Uncle John’s “Holden hospitality” – hot showers and wonderful breakfast – we were on our way. We headed back down to Chicago to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, in Hyde Park, on the south side of Chicago. Here’s a little geography lesson for you all. Gurnee, IL, despite its distant location, is considered a suburb of Chicago. In fact, all the places we’ve visited recently are considered on the outskirts of Chicago. The only problem was, we didn’t figure out this geography lesson until after we had made our plans with our various relatives. As a result, we spent a fair amount of time driving from one outskirt to another. So we decided to try to make this drive a scenic one and drive down to Chicago along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. However, that is easier said than done and we often found ourselves on narrow roads lined with very pretty homes, but no lake in sight -- although we did pass Wrigley Field. In fact, at one point we found ourselves headed for a low clearance bridge that would have given Harvey, the RV, a very close shave – down to its roof potentially leaving skylights and antennae littering the roadside. We wisely settled on another route.

          So we decided to rely on Gypsy, our GPS. Well, Gypsy’s feelings must have been deeply hurt because we turned it on, asked it where to go and promptly ignored its suggestions. Now that we were following where it was leading us, it led us …into the heart of darkness – downtown Chicago. According to Gypsy we were to head south along Lakeshore Drive, a mini highway that moves fairly well right along the shoreline. But construction confused both us and Gypsy, so soon Jim was driving a 30-foot mammoth RV in the heart of downtown Chicago traffic. Despite the challenges and difficulties, Jim’s driving was phenomenal. He squeezed Harvey by a double-parked moving truck, with plenty of clearance (about ½ an inch between the mirrors), deftly danced Harvey around a car backing up sideways across the middle of an intersection, and scooted Harvey around a tight corner, carefully avoiding an errant pedestrian who was crossing the intersection in a diagonal against all the lights. This last maneuver was the funniest. Because Jim was concentrating so hard on not hitting said errant pedestrian, he took the corner a little too sharp and the rear wheel went slightly up on the curb causing Harvey to hop and shudder. Just at that moment I look up and see a mom hauling her son away from the edge of the sidewalk, lest this mammoth vehicle from California wipe him out. Her son was never in any danger, not even remotely, but it was amusing to see the effect Harvey could have on a crowd. Others also must have thought us slightly nuts for choosing this route because mouths would gape open and fingers would point at the sight of us.

          It was afternoon when we finally arrived at Robie House, located on the University of Chicago campus. Having some time before our tour, we explored the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, a building of mammoth cathedral proportions located on the University of Chicago campus. Although it is purported to be the ceremonial and spiritual center for the university, we noticed that not a single religious symbol could be found, not even a cross. It was a good teaching moment for our kids as we explained that often in an effort to not take a stand on anything, one ends up standing for nothing. The building’s vast emptiness witnessed to the spiritual void.

          Then it was on to our tour of the Robie house, built by Frank Lloyd Wright in his tradition of being in harmony with its environment and considered one of the most important buildings in American architecture. Designed in Wright's Oak Park studio which we had just toured, it is renowned as a forerunner of modernism in architecture. There we enjoyed a tour of the exterior and interior of the house. However, we appear to be suffering from Frank Lloyd Wright overload and what the kids enjoyed most about our time was visiting the gift shop. Abby read a book nearly cover to cover, Lindsey found some beautiful scarves (costing $55-$85) and Ben and Caitlin played a game with Froebel blocks, the same blocks that got Frank Lloyd Wright interested in architecture. After the tour, we wandered the University of Chicago campus and checked out what a university library is like.

          Next we headed out to Wheaton, another Chicago “suburb” to meet up with our friend Elisa Leberis, Pam’s roommate during our year with the MISFITs and fellow Stanford grad and IVCF member. Our time with Elisa was another little taste of heaven. Elisa works at Wheaton College and treated us to a tour of the campus. What a stark contrast to the University of Chicago! (“Where fun goes to die”) Instead of cold stone Gothic structures we were treated to immaculate landscaping, beautiful architecture and we were serenaded by a faculty member practicing his bagpipe. We even got a chance to visit the college’s cafeteria. We almost ate there, but decided it was a little too noisy for the evening we had in mind. So we all piled into Harvey and drove to quaint downtown Wheaton. There we enjoyed more Chicago deep dish pizza at Gino’s Pizzeria.  Upon hearing that one of the themes of our trip was old fashioned ice cream parlors, Elisa insisted that our visit would not be complete without a trip to Tate’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream. We were eager to check out her recommendation and were not disappointed. The hot fudge for their hot fudge sundae was made of dark chocolate and very thick and viscous. DELICOUS!

          After this fun evening we said our good-byes to Elisa and headed out to boondock at the nearest Walmart, which seems to have disappeared into thin air. So we drove a little further north, finally settling in the parking lot of the Walmart in Elk Grove Village. It was like we were home.