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.

This post is the Introduction
Day 1: Around Chicago’s north shore suburbs 
Day 2: Around Kenosha
Day 3: Around Racine, and back home

The sound of Lake Michigan waves rushing onto the sandy shore … the squawk of seagulls and other birds calling to their fellow friends … the horizon where blue meets blue …

The sights and sounds of Lake Michigan are a favorite of mine, and I took this trip to get up close and personal with a portion of it between Chicago and Milwaukee: an area that I have given the nickname “Chicwaukee.” 

It just so happened that during all three days of this trip, the wind was whipping and the sound of the rushing waves were more pronounced than usual. Never mind the fact that it was only around 45-50 degrees away from the lake (colder near it, of course). The rushing wave sound is a calming one for me, and on this vacation week from work, I needed the getaway from a tight magazine publication schedule and a change in content management instructions. 

Lake Michigan wasn’t the genesis of this trip, however. I will turn 39 years old in April, and that number is synonymous with Waukegan’s native son, Jack Benny. Reruns of his show would be on the classic television channel out of the Quad Cities at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and it was the cool down I needed from working nights at the nearby Shell gas station like I did then. 

I set out to find some Benny sites in Waukegan. Then came attaching Lake Michigan places, and then came attaching Kenosha and Racine for a multi-day thing. 

For these kinds of trips, I simply do what I call “wandering.” I do a little bit of advance research and recalling from memory of places I’ve heard of, and then map a path to connect the dots and wind up finding more things to either 1) see along the way, or 2) form a list for the next visit. You can’t possibly see everything in one trip. I already knew a lot about the Illinois part of the trip, but for Kenosha and Racine, I made sure to stop at their visitor centers to learn about more places that I didn’t know about. 

As I pointed out with Galena in an earlier post, visitor centers are a great resource to get the most out of your visit, and the people there know what they’re talking about. 

I will write an overview of my vacation in three parts. You are reading the introduction to it. 

My trip began in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Glencoe, and I went up to The Illinois-Wisconsin state line for Day 1. Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie are the subjects of Day 2. Racine highlights Day 3, which also includes notes and sights from a couple of places I found on my way back home. 

For each of my Day reports, I’ll highlight some of my stops and explain a little of what makes them unique. Some destinations will have full-fledged feature posts down the road. 

Here’s where I visited (just sharing the stops for now): 

Glencoe (various sites), The Leaf Cafe in Bannockburn, the National Museum of the American Sailor at Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago, Jack Benny sites around Waukegan, Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor, Carol Beach in Pleasant Prairie, Woodman’s Grocery Store in Kenosha (it’s 250,000 square feet!), Frank’s Diner in Kenosha, the Kenosha History Museum (not to be confused with the Public Museum), the Pritzker Military Museum in nearby Somers, street car riding in downtown Kenosha, Wind Point Lighthouse near Racine, Bendtsen’s Bakery and hand-made Danish kringles in Racine, SC Johnson Headquarters buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright in Racine, Hot Shop (art) Glass in Racine, the Racine Art Museum + Peeps exhibition, Horlick Athletic Field in Racine.

There were several places that were on my mind that I wound up saving for another trip. This included the Kenosha Public Museum, Civil War Museum and the Dinosaur Museum also in town, Southport Lighthouse in Kenosha, and an interior tour of the SC Johnson Headquarters. The Adali Stevenson Home in suburban Mettawa also was on my mind, but it is closed for renovations at this time. 

I already visited the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha with my late grandfather in 2021. Sunrise Park in Lake Bluff is another neat Lake Michigan site, and I visited there in 2022. 

If you have Facebook, I have three albums of pictures from my trip. They don’t have much for captions on them right now, but I’ll do that when I upload them to Flickr soon and make them part of my Day reports. 

To be continued …