How to choose a vacation spot

When we look at taking a vacation, I have unusual criteria for selecting the venue. The potential satisfaction value of a place is directly proportional to the number of plaques on display. Sunshine and pretty scenery are, of course, a bonus and some of kind of record-holding can topple the balance in the favor of a particular spot. We once had a memorable almost-trip to the highest waterfall in Queensland. Which we only took because we wanted to say we’d been to the highest waterfall in Queensland. Now we just have a very long story about how we got to within a mile or so of it.

All of which is long way of saying that when faced with the decision of where to go for a recent weekend break, the place with the most number of historic buildings won hands down. Sunshine in Florida? Good choice. Back to nature in Door County? Sounds promising. A whopping 85% of the buildings in Galena are in a National Register Historic District. The only choice. Our camera has Repetitive Strain Injury from flexing its shutter muscles for all the photographs of plaques.

We managed to put the photo equipment down for long enough to find the most expensive restaurant in town. (In a suitably old building, naturally.) The Perry Street Brasserie was fantastic, which was a real relief to me as I’d picked it from a review in the New York Times Travel section. I’d read about a chef’s special of lobster in a curry sauce that had swung the voting in its favor. It was well worth facing the ire of the maître d’, who was not happy about our turning up without a reservation. No fewer than three members of wait staff approached us to ask if we’d already booked. The look of concern in each one’s face was more troubling than the last as they muttered darkly something about having to ask Mary. Mary turned out to be most happy to accommodate us.

Usually, we base our travel itineraries on paper guide books, but this time I did a lot of research online. That’s also how I found Clarks Again breakfast - a seemingly real old-fashioned breakfast diner that was complete with leather swivelly top counter stools. No need for booking a table here.

After the civil war cannons, we took a trip to the showpiece of the city - a house donated to President Grant by the good citizens of Galena. I love walking around those show houses, set up to look “as it would when General and Mrs Grant visited for their summers”. Scratchy replica horse hair chairs and shiny plastic joints of ham included.

A successful weekend, I’d say.

Expectations

Before coming to the States, I had some notion of the Midwest as all Little House on the Prairie. Small towns would be neighborhoodly places with characters straight out of the head of Garrison Keillor. In Chicago it would be perpetually snowing. (Almost right with that one, although today my preoccupation is more with the eleventy-billion insect bites I suffered yesterday and I’m pretty sure if it were snowing that would mean no mosquitoes.)

Finally, I’m not sure I consciously thought about it, but I’m pretty sure I always expected prairie to be sandy, unproductive and not remotely green. I don’t know where this image came from - I was picturing something utterly unattractive. The driving we’ve done through the Midwest has mostly been through flat, agricultural country. Plenty of green from the John Deere, but there’s farm planting right up to the Interstate. We’ve seen an abundance of farmsteads that look as though they are just waiting to be scooped up and dropped in Oz at the merest whiff of a tornado.

And I had no idea that I my mental images were so wrong until confronted with restored prairie in Elizabeth, IL. Having dutifully read the description of how volunteers had reseeded the area to resemble the original prairie meadows I was a little confused. Then we went out to photograph what is essentially a wildflower meadow. Who knew?

Only everyone else.

In my head Laura Ingalls Wilder was looking for gophers in entirely different topography.

Maybe I was thinking of the Wild West?

The Napoleon

At the crest of the park on the banks of the Galena river, there stand at least four pieces of armory. The cannons all face out onto to the river; the 1913 Krupp Howitzer, the Spanish Cannon, the Blakely Rifle, and the Napoleon.

We spent some time in the sunshine, taking pictures of the cannons, the views across to the picturesque city center, and the statue of city alumnus, General Grant.

I’m not entirely sure why I love old weaponry. I held a rifle once and it terrified me to the point of tears. In my defense, they were asking me to shoot at a target with it, and I did not feel at all confident that I’d been told how to achieve that. On the other hand, if you put an old-looking gun with the vaguest of historical links behind a glass case, or on a plinth in a park, I just feel like it’s begging to have its photo taken.

I can’t remember not finding military and naval histories fascinating. I can’t remember exactly why, but I have a good idea.

Hey Dad. I inherited your hatred of making phone calls, and your interest in naval histories.

That’s why it was impossible to resist the siren song of a 12-Pounder Field Gun, a civil war workhouse called Napoleon. Cast in 1862, the cannon has an indentation on the side of the breech. The crater has been worn smooth now, but was originally the result of a direct hit. In May of 1865, the Napoleon was fired in celebration of the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Hard to imagine that noisy history when the mottled, burnished breech is seen on a quiet, sunny Sunday morning.

Amazing how an instrument of war can remind you of where your interests came from, and make you feel loved!

Happy Love Thursday, a group feature hosted by ShutterSisters.

Hitting the Open Road

Often in the last three years, we have consulted our “foreigner’s bible”. The Rough Guide to the USA may have bitten off more than it can chew in attempting to describe the breadth and depth of the States, but it does offer a broad overview that can mostly point us in the right direction. The best compliment I can give it is that it has not failed us yet.

If we are traveling to somewhere for longer than a couple of days we head to the library, or Borders, for a more detailed State or City guide. For a weekend, three or four paragraphs and a restaurant recommendation is just perfect. The overview has also proved invaluable reading. It begins with a list of 37 things which the seriously overachieving visitor to the USA must check off before their return flight. Over breakfast on Sunday, we looked at the list.

We have achieved a woeful 14/37. Three we intend to complete this summer. The other 20? Some of them are things we would love to do; things like see Mount Rushmore or visit San Francisco. Yet, for us, only of one the 37 really described the essence of what we’ve loved about the USA, and is a definite “thing not to miss”.

#37 Hitting the open road

Chicago is wonderful, but it is a city, and it’s just one city and to go home only with city experiences would be lopsided somehow. Flying gets you to the four corners quickly, but it doesn’t allow you to see how the change takes place, how things change as you move throughout the country. Renting a car (however heavy the door) has given us a better of idea of the variety on offer in the States, of the huge difference even within a single state. Of how seeing the clouds in the wing mirrors can make the weekend possibilities endless.

We only managed a one-mile walk…

On the way back from a wonderful weekend in Galena, IL., we stopped for some bottled water. Part of the plan was to stop off in a State Park and have a hike before finishing the drive home and we needed hydration, so J. stayed in the rented Saturn View while I went in for two big and two small bottles of water and a packet of Bubblemint gum.

With my hands full I struggled to open the heavy car door. I was trying to get J. to open the door from inside to take the bottles, but he wasn’t able to reach over from the driver’s side. Twice I got the door open and it swung back before I could get myself and my loot inside.

Probably should have foreseen what then happened when I did get the door open.

Over the melodious roar of the twenty-odd Hells Angels who’d also stopped at the gas station, I heard J. call out. Next thing I knew the door was thwacking me on the head, shoving my shins into the sill and pushing my forehead onto the upper car-frame.

There were tears, and there was sympathy and now there are very, very sore shins.