From Sea to Shining Sea: Chicago

Chicago is one of my favorite places. It's a place with which I've become fairly familiar.

My first trip to Chicago was during my senior year (2000). Myself and 3 others skipped school one day (our parents called us in sick) and took a day trip up. I don't remember much of what we did... pretty sure that is because we didn't do too much. I do recall eating at the Rainforest Cafe and also wandering around a strange shop that sold various "scary" things.

I returned to the Windy City that summer, but again not for long. A group of us took our friend to the airport and then went into the city where we ate at Ed DeBevic's. Ed DeBevic's is a fabulous 50s style restaurant where the waitstaff is rude to the customers - and you get to be rude right back! I've been there many times and it is always fun.

Once in college, making day or weekend trips to Chicago become somewhat common. There's a train from South Bend (about 45 minutes from Goshen) to Chicago, which made it easy to go for a day or two. Also many friends from college ended up there after they graduated, which gave us another excuse to escape Goshen for a day or two.


A few of my friends and I headed to Chicago for a few days during our spring break from college in 2002. We ate at Ed DeBevic's, the Hard Rock Cafe, the Rainforest Cafe - all the classic "tourist" restaurants. We did a lot of walking, spent some time at Navy Pier, went to the Art Museum, went to the Sears Tower, and ate a few times at the Corner Bakery.


Right before I headed to Spain (August of 2002) my mom and I spent a couple days in Chicago. It was her first real visit, so I took her around to some of the main areas/streets of Chicago. I also introduced her to the Cheesecake Factory, which is one of my all-time favorite restaurants. She loved it, too, and we now go there whenever we hit up Chicago.


The first photos that I have to document my times in Chicago are from a visit in the summer of 2003. My friend Laura and I went to Chicago over the 4th of July weekend and stayed with a high school friend of mine. We enjoyed the Taste of Chicago, fireworks from my friend's apartment's rooftop, and Navy Pier. I know we wandered around and saw more (like the Art museum), but, seriously, all of my visits run together and I can only remember a few things that we specifically did! Here are some photos from our trip:



The following summer (2004) I returned to Chicago for the 4th of July weekend, staying with the same friend in his new apartment, but I went with 2 different friends, Micah and Chellie. We also went to the Taste of Chicago but we mostly wandered around Grant Park taking in the city sites versus tasting the food.





Along State Street there were many Mickey Mouse statues; we all chose some that represented us and took some photos:





It was a fun weekend. We did a lot of walking, saw some cool stuff, and enjoyed a nice escape from our lives in Goshen.


In the fall of 2005 I found myself going to Chicago for another weekend. My friend Jamie and I took the train, met up with a college friend of ours, crashed at her place, then attended a carnival at the Chicago Mennonite Learning School (where our friend was currently working); Jamie's family also came up. We had fun at the carnival then headed downtown in the afternoon/evening to check out Millenium Park. We also ate at a pizzeria that huge pizza slices!





That winter (or it could have been the previous... seriously, my memory is not good!) I went to Chicago for a day to visit my friend Julie. There was a lot of snow that day - we're talking whiteout! But we still had fun. We spent the afternoon at the Field Museum and then enjoyed dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.






There were other trips to Chicago, during which times I saw many of the same things, and also the China Town a couple times (not really a big fan of that place; I've seen much better China Towns), but the next one from which I actually have photos was my last trip there, almost a year ago (the end of February, 2008). My mom and I spent a couple days there before I returned here to Korea. Our first stop was the Rainforest Cafe, which was located close to our hotel.

That night we went to see Wicked... it was amazing!!

On our second day we went to Milennium Park to check out the Museum of Modern Ice:

That night we ate at the Cheesecake Factory (of course!):

It was a short trip, but good. I'm sure next time I'm home I will be returning to Chicago for more fun!

From Sea to Shining Sea: Colorado Springs

My first ever road trip with friends was to Colorado. It was a great time. I mentioned in my first post (the one about NYC) that we went for our friend's graduation. We took a van and a car from central IL to a small city about an hour out of Colorado Springs, where we surprised our friend at his graduation, and then crashed a party (or two) that night - where we taught everone how to do several group dances. We spent the next couple of days seeing a few sites, including "7 Falls" (which was a disappointment), the Garden of the Gods (absolutely beautiful), and the outside of the Olympics Complex (it was closed the day we went). After a few days of enjoying Colorado, we stole our friend and headed home (it had been prearranged with his parents that we would be doing so!.



A few years later I found myself taking another road trip to Colorado Springs. I headed there with 2 of my college friends, where we met up with another one of our friends, and then attended the wedding of a couple of our other friends (keeping up?!). We only had 3 days, as we were all working. We spent Friday driving there, stayed at a hotel, attended the wedding on Saturday morning, went to the Garden of the Gods in the afternoon, ate dinner, then drove overnight/most of the day Sunday back to Indiana so we would all be back in time to work on Monday morning. So, it was a quick trip, but a lot of fun!

From Sea to Shining Sea: St Louis

In middle school and high school my only visits to St Louis were to spend a day at Six Flags. Once in college, a few of my friends moved down there, so, needless to say, I've been down there a few times to see a bit of the city (and spend some quality time with good friends).

Unfortunately, most of my photos were lost in the aforementioned computer crash. And my memory isn't great as I pretty much just went wherever my friends led me.

On my first trip I know I went downtown, saw the arch (though didn't visit it), ate at some good restaurants, and bought some amazing fudge (at Union Station - they dance and sing while they make it; really quite fun ^^). I also went to the zoo with two of my friends:



The zoo has a pretty cool penguin exhibit, along with all of the usual American zoo exhibits.

On another visit I finally made it to (and, up into) the arch:



I also returned to the zoo and wandered around other areas of the city - all of which I really don't remember.

Sorry for such a dismal blog on St Louis... it is a nice city (even though they are host of the worst baseball team). I'm sure I will return there again - and I'll try to post some better photos!

From Sea to Shining Sea: Holland

Not the country, the city.

One of our favorite road trips in college was a day trip up to Holland, Michigan. To be honest, we never really did much - wandered around a bit, shopped, and ate at the 8th Street Grille.

I went there on two different occassions (I feel like it was more, but I think it really was only twice. Very strangee.).

The first was with Micah and Chellie, summer of 2004. The second was with Micah and Yolonda, summer of 2005 (or was it 2006?).

Here are some fun photos from my first trip:

These next 3 are from my second trip. We went to the 8th Street Grille, famous for it's soup bar. Unfortunately they had absolutely nothing on their menu (seriously - not only the soups, but their entire menu, which is a decent size) that was vegetarian. So I drank water (with lemon), and just settled for dessert afterwards.

From Sea to Shining Sea: New York City

I may have spent over 24 years living in the States (and been a resident for almost 27 years now), but I have yet to see much of it. My family didn't travel much; we made it over to Branson, Missouri two years in a row when I was in middle school, but that was the extent.

In high school, my senior year, I finally began going places, albeit slowly. A few of my friends and I made it to Chicago for our senior skip day, and then right after our graduation a bunch of us made a road trip out to Colorado to surprise our friend at his graduation (he had moved out there about a year previously). We saw his small city and also took in some of the sights of Colorado Springs.

The summer after my first year of college (2001) my good friend Amanda and I road-tripped over to North Carolina to stay with her grandparents for about a week. It was my first time seeing the ocean!! We had a great time, hanging out in Wilmington, going to a small island, and even driving down to Myrtle Beach for a day. Before heading back to Illinois we went up to Washington, DC for about a day and a half, and then we went to NYC for one day. We managed to see quite a lot and a had a good time.

Unfortunately, all of my photos from those trips were taken pre-digital camera. Therefore, I do not have photos from those travels to share with you.

Instead I will begin my photo travel blog with a few photos from my second trip to NYC, which was about 2.5 years after my first day trip (Dec 2003-Jan 2004). My bestest friend ever, Angela, and I spent a week in NYC in the middle of my fourth year of college. She was getting married that spring, and we figured it may be our last chance to take a trip together. It had also been a dream of a few of us to celebrate New Year's in Times Square, so we wanted to make it a reality. The two of us stayed at a nice hotel (nice, but small room) not too far from downtown NYC. We went to some of the great museums (including the Met and the Natural History museum); painted our own trivets; saw the major sites (Empire State building, Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Times Square - more than just on New Year's Eve, etc); went to a filming of the Today show (but they never showed us on TV :(); walked around Central Park; went to Harlem (and Spanish Harlem); meandered around the major shopping districts; went to a club; and even saw a musical on off-broadway.

I only have 3 photos from our trip; my previous laptop crashed in the summer of 2007 before I backed-up all my files, so I lost almost all of my photos taken since I first got a digital camera (back in 2002).

Empire State Building, ferry over to Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty: