Our Trip Blog

The Events of Friday, August 27, 2010

          After sleeping in on this lovely Friday morning, we made ourselves a breakfast of sweet rolls, eggs, and, for some people, grits. Then we walked the five blocks to Frank Lloyd Wright’s house. For you who don’t know, Frank Lloyd Wright is a famous architect who began his career in Oak Park. He designed houses called prairie-style houses, and his houses are known for fitting in with the environment that surrounds them. In a specific neighborhood in Oak Park, Illinois, there are many houses that he designed, including his own family home and his work studio. In the visitor center, we found that it would be cheaper for our family of six to get a family membership instead of just tickets for a tour of the interior of his home and studio. The membership included an audio tour of the neighborhood, a tour of his house and studio, and entrance into the Robie House, his most famous creation. We decided to do the audio tour of the neighborhood first. We saw many different examples of his architecture, and his interest in Mayan motifs, as well as Japanese architecture, showed their influence in his works.

          By the time we finished the audio tour, it was lunchtime. One of my dad’s cousins, Daniel, recommended an old-fashioned ice cream parlor called Petersen’s. So we decided to go there for our (extremely healthy) lunch and liked it immensely. Dad had raspberry sorbet and rainbow sherbet double scoop in a bowl and Mom had a Mack Island Fudge sundae- with hot fudge. Caitlin had an extraordinary banana split with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, peppermint ice cream, and Blue Moon ice cream, an ice cream that tasted like marshmallows and sugar. Ben had a double ice cream cone with Superman ice cream, a fruity and sugary tasting ice cream, and Blue Moon ice cream. Lindsey had a double scoop ice cream cone with rainbow sherbet, and I had a double scoop ice cream cone with peppermint and Mack Island Fudge.

          After this delicious “lunch”, we went back to Frank Lloyd Wright’s house and studio for our guided tour of its interior. There we discovered that Frank Lloyd Wright liked to make rooms seem larger than they are, sometimes going long lengths to achieve that goal. For instance, in the children’s play room, they had a grand piano, but because, if the piano was completely in the room, it would make the room seem smaller, Frank Lloyd Wright made a hole in the wall and put the end of the piano through it, so that the front of the piano was against the wall and the end was hanging over a back stairway. Frank Lloyd Wright also liked unique designs, developing a very different style than the traditional Victorian design of the day.

          After finishing our tour, we walked back to the Knickelbeins’ house. At their house we had a very late lunch and hung out with Dad’s cousins, Daniel and Alex, until Aunt Lori and Uncle Mark came home from work. A true Chicago experience is not complete without Chicago Stuffed Deep Dish Pizza. So we walked to an Italian restaurant called Giordano’s.  For dinner, we had fried calamari, Tropic Delight pizza (with Canadian bacon and pineapple) and a second pizza with sausage and pepperoni. We all thoroughly enjoyed our meal, and then we walked home and went to bed.