The first leg of our road trip was pretty well planned. We, my son Elijah and I, would sneak out of church right after the worship (I lead the worship at our church) and hit the road with the goal of being in Chicago for lunch. Speaking of lunch, knowing that I only have one afternoon to introduce my son to Chicago and its amazing food, where should I take him? The choices are endless. I could take him downtown and we could eat at any number of the famous/tourist restaurants or we could hit the suburbs where small restaurants are on nearly every corner and it seems you can't go wrong with any of them. This method is my style but we will get back to this.
In preparation for the trip, I prepared the Vanagon with fresh Mobil 1 synthetic oil knowing that we were going to add a significant amount of stress on it over the next few days. Our Vanagon is a 1987 water-cooled flat four with a manual four speed transmission, meaning that our top cruising speed was between 55 and 57mph and the engine is running about 3200 rpms. Thats spinning super fast for any car, but speed was not an issue on this first day due to the fact that our chosen day to head to Chicago also happened to be the Sunday after the 4th of July. Apparently all of Chicago left the city for the Fourth and we got caught in their migration back to the city.
Over four hours later we arrived in the Windy City sadly already eaten McDonalds in the traffic jam, none-the-less we were in Chicago. We streched out our legs on the Magnificent Mile grabbed an iced coffee from Starbucks and headed to the suburbs for one of my favorite eats, El Llano's Colombian Restaurant. El Llanos serves simple meat and potato empanadas with lime wedges and green salsa for only a buck a piece, Seriously good stuff! Yes, I know what you are thinking but food truly brings me joy and did you happen to notice the name of this blog?
After dinner, and missing the opportunity to taste two restaurants in the city, we were back on the highway speeding along at our 57mph heading to our only planned campground, Kohler Andrae State Park located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. I'm not much of a camper so it was not surprising that it started raining just as we entered the guard shack to reserve our space for the night. Who's idea was this?
Day one complete. Adventure to come.
Thinking of making the trip?
• Kohler Andrae State Park located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on Lake Michigan - Super nice with Modern bathrooms and clean hot showers. Sites are first come first served unless you spring an extra 20 bucks to reserve a spot in advance.
• El Llano's Colombian Restaurant
4011 N Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60618
- A little hole in the wall with a variety of Colombian dishes. It's not fancy but well worth the stop and you can usually find a parking spot right in front of the door.
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