I took a 3-day tour around Chicago’s north shore suburbs and the Kenosha/Racine area to wander about and see what all was there. I left wanting to come back for more, there’s plenty of interesting places to see and visit.
I will have separate posts about some of these places down the road. This is simply a chronological timeline of the trip.
Introduction
This post is about being around Chicago’s north shore suburbs
Day 2: Around Kenosha
Day 3: Around Racine, and back home
***CLICK HERE FOR A PHOTO GALLERY TO HELP YOU FOLLOW ALONG IN THIS POST***
The trip got off to a rough start.
When you have your dates set for going on a multi-day road trip and you can’t bend them, you’re bound to run into unfortunate situations. On this occasion, the day I wanted to see the sun rise on Lake Michigan, it was gloomy and no sun peered over the horizon or from the clouds until well after the sunrise time.
It used to be that I would always seem to encounter some form of precipitation on the drive to my first destination. That hadn’t happened for a while, until this occasion. While I didn’t get to see the sun rise over the lake, just seeing it after a long time was a neat thing for my eyes after a few years away from it.
In order to see the sun rise over the lake, I had to leave from my home in Sterling early enough, 3:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. sunrise. Just so you know, I do not take the freeways. I can weave my way around the suburban roads to get there. Why? 1) Freeways are boring. 2) I would have hit five or six tolls. 3) I just didn’t feel like going up against the freeway traffic. 4) If something were to happen en route, the side roads have places to stop at. Also, I’m not in a rush to get to places, as the two-and-a-half-hour drive was enough time.
My first destination was Glencoe Beach and Lakefront Park. While I didn’t get the see the sunrise there, I thought it would be a great place to go to another time to see it. The lookout from the end of Park Avenue, which is situated along a bluff, provides a wide scope, with the sound of wind moving the trees and, of course, plenty of birds. Benches are there to take in the view. A walking path goes down hill and into a limestone shelter that also provides a lake view.
Glencoe is a wealthy suburb with lots of large, well-kept houses and a downtown that looks a little reminiscent of what a small European village’s downtown would look like, in my view. Houses that make a downstate person like me go, “I’d love to live in something like that one day.” One of the Metra train routes goes through the village, and its depot has a large, overhanging roof with a silo-like center. I marvel at the architecture of the homes and buildings whenever I go through the lakefront suburbs, as I enjoy seeing unique things.
Another Glencoe stop was to the Ravine Bluff Subdivision, which has a few Frank Lloyd Wright homes – which have their own very unique architecture. Wright homes are typically known for lines and rectangles, very little triangular. What made me want to visit was to see the only vehicular bridge that Wright ever designed, which is one over a small creek. The original bridge was built in the 1910s, but was taken down and rebuilt in the 1980s with its exact looks. The only other bridge Wright designed was a walking bridge for his famous Fallingwater estate in Pennsylvania.
The next stop was to The Leaf Cafe in Bannockburn. What’s unique about this place to eat at is that it is inside an office building, the Bannockburn Corporate Center. Why there? Assumption: I collect baseball cards, and during the 1980s and 1990s, the Leaf candy company produced cards from Bannockburn. I thought maybe this was a nod or a remnant of those days. It actually turned out to be something different than I thought, and that the place was not related to the candy and baseball card company.
I enjoyed The Leaf’s “Lorraine” omelet of scallions, Swiss cheese, bacon and three eggs; served with toast and plenty of healthy drinks are available by the bottle. The husband and wife are nice people, and she even told me that when he made the omelet, he thought it looked so good that he wanted to take a picture of it. I did. Booth seating is large and comfortable, and there is a small bubbling water rock area as well. This office building is off of state Route 22 and I-94, and it’s somewhere I’d go back to again to try something else.
National Museum of the American Sailor, North Chicago
Next up was the National Museum of the American Sailor, which is outside the front gate of Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago. I had two great-granduncles who served in the Navy during World War II in the Pacific Theater, and one great uncle who served during the Cold War (Uncle Wayne served on the ship that recovered John Glenn from his famous space flight).
This year marks the United States Navy’s 250th anniversary (1775). This museum covers its history, what life was like on ships, what training was/is like, medals of honor from a few veterans, and some of the tools that were used back then before they were improved upon. A large exhibit on tattoos concludes the walk-around: It explains the what’s and why’s of how tattoos are a big part of Navy life, some early tattooing tools, and pictures of several of them from current and recently retired soldiers with their stories about them.
There is also a small display of GLNB’s football history during World War II, which, as a sports history guy, I had forgotten about – but I knew of the WW2 football history of Camps Sheridan, Grant and Ellis. Admission is free and is recommended if you’re interested in anything Navy.
Before my next series of stops, I went to Jim and Steve’s Sportscards in Waukegan to pick up an online order of some baseball cards. I knew I’d be in that direction, so I did some shopping.
Waukegan was where Jack Benny was born in 1894. It’s been 51 years since he died, but I remember watching reruns of his television shows and found them to be entertaining. There are some places in Waukegan that honor him. One of them is Jack Benny Middle School. Their school nickname is the ’39’ers, a nod to the number that Benny would use as his age for many comedic routines (Benny died when he was “negative-2”).
I wonder how many students at the school have a real grasp of who Benny was. He wasn’t as well-known of a figure as Lincoln or Jefferson (two schools in Sterling I went to). Then again, I didn’t know who Wallace, Merrill or Challand were (other Sterling and Rock Falls schools I went to), but the three of them were local people.
There is a statue of Benny on a downtown corner next to a walkway plaza. I took a picture of myself in the familiar Benny pose with his hand on his cheek. One of the homes we lived in is just a few blocks from the statue.
The Benny sites actually were my genesis of making this trip, before it evolved into a lot more. I turn 39 this year.
Illinois Beach State Park, Zion
From Chicago going north to Waukegan, almost all of the Lake Michigan shore is occupied by some human use: home, business, industrial, harbor, whatever. Illinois Beach State Park helps retain the shore’s natural look and feel pre-human development. Yeah, it’s turned into a park, but there’s a whole lot more nature to it than elsewhere along the shore in Illinois.
The park features walking trails among prairies, a nature center (which was closed when I arrived, a reason to come back another time), small ponds, and, of course, a walking path along the lake. There weren’t that many people there when I visited, and the large parking lot had only a few cars that were looking into the lake, double-parked in the stalls.
The panorama view of the lake at this park rivals only that of the Chicago beaches. What makes this place different, and better, than the Chicago beaches is that there is no white noise in the background that one would typically hear in the big city; the wave sounds are much more audible here. I think once you’ve taken in Lake Michigan from here, it would be a little difficult to appreciate a similar experience elsewhere in Illinois; so if you want a lake looking experience, there’s this park, as well as the nearby North Dunes Nature Preserve.
I also drove on the circular street around Christ Community Church in Zion. The town has an interesting religious history, one that I will take in on another trip.
North Point Marina, Winthrop Harbor
I visited just to see the boats. There weren’t many docked at this time of year, but I just wanted to imagine myself being on one. It’s one of the largest along Lake Michigan. Perhaps on another trip during the summer, I’ll sit on a bench and marvel at all of the boats that come and go.
Spring Grove Nature Preserve is next to the marina. There was a controlled prairie burn going on when I visited. Late lunch was at Stone Creek Grill in town. I ordered a brisket wrap, which is something I never had before. I’ve had brisket, but not in a wrap.
At this point, you’ve probably noticed that there were many occasions where I missed out on visiting places, or visited too early in the year. That’s okay. I know that I won’t get everything in one shot, and I’ve been mapping and planning out a second trip through to take at some point. Everywhere I went to so far was along a path that I hadn’t explored before, and that is the experience of wandering around.
This trip also can be realigned into a Sheridan Road tour, which is named for the fort north of Highland Park. The road begins near the north end of Lake Shore Drive and wanders north along north shore suburban towns and neighborhoods with large, neat-looking houses. Sheridan Road jogs several times, but signs point travelers in the right direction.
Between all of the walking at Illinois Beach, and being in the car for a long time, my legs were a bit sore. I took a car nap back at North Point. Then it was time to get to my hotel in Kenosha, but not before seeing if my legs were good enough to walk around the 250,000-square foot Woodman’s grocery store near my hotel.
At least I had a cart to hold onto. When built in 1997, the Kenosha Woodman’s was the largest grocery store in the country (a new, perhaps larger one is currently under construction in Racine).
Woodman’s is an Wisconsin-Illinois regional chain. Woodman’s stores are unique in not only their size, but also for offering low prices, and different brands of products – perhaps you may acquire a taste for a brand of something you didn’t know about. You can be educated on flavors you didn’t know about. Did you know Pepsi makes a 36-pack case of Pepsi and Mountain Dew? I didn’t until seeing one: Take its price and divide by three, and you have a number to compare to for a 12-pack. You’re bound to see something you haven’t seen before at your typical grocery store when you shop at a Woodman’s.
I picked up a few staples from my grocery list (I keep an ongoing list on my phone), but my legs were giving out. Just to see the inside was neat and something I don’t get to experience every day – which is what a vacation is for, right?
That concludes Day 1 of my 3-day trip. Tomorrow’s sight-seeing involves Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie, and begins with breakfast at a famous diner.
To be continued …
Cody’s Road Trips 