Vacay 2025 Part 3 – Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska

 

I decided to post the Iowa Quilt Museum into another post and include all my travel photos here. I wrote about my other travels here, and here.

To recap, I drove 1,200 miles in 4 days, traveled through 5 states, one quilt museum, one quilt show, one Aunt, a Cousin and visited with my friend since second grade in my hometown. I amused myself while driving by going old school: radio tuned to local stations and old rock (“Juke Box Hero” et al). When my drive was over, I was ready to get out of that car, but it was so worthwhile. My main goal was to see my Aunt; everything else was gravy.

My path and dates:
Th, July 24 – Flew from Denver to Columbus, Ohio. Rent a car. Drive to Athens, Oh. Hotel.
Fri, July 25 – View Quilt National. Drive to East Peoria, Ill. Hotel.
Sat, July 26 – Drive to Eureka, Ill, visit my Aunt as well as my Cousin. Drive to Ottawa to visit my childhood friend. Hotel.
Sun, July 27 – Drive to Winterset, Iowa to visit the Iowa Quilt Museum.
Drive to Omaha to spend the night before my flight home. Hotel.
Sun, July 28 – Fly home. Whew!

I’m from the Midwest and really enjoyed immersing myself in it for a few days.

Ohio view – soooo green and love those clouds. I passed so many Forests, Preserves and Parks! I wanted to stop at each, but like Clark in Vacation, I had to push on to Athens so that I could see Quilt National the next day.

I really did NOT want to eat restaurant food for 4 days, so I was thrilled to stumble upon this apparently iconic fruit and vegetable stand in a gas station lot across from my hotel. The owner’s family has been farming in the area since 1790!

What a treat to have fresh, juicy, sloppy ripe peaches for snacks. And a dead ripe tomato that still smelled like the vine. Heaven!

I was so pleased to leave the next day stocked with good stuff to eat on the run. I don’t like to eat restaurant food if I can help it.

Just one example of the ridiculously beautiful and colorful plantings that abounded in the area.

After viewing Quilt National the next day, I drove on to my next hotel in East Peoria, Illinois. Oy. I did not realize I was in a casino pit, an isolated nest of hotels down a steep bluff, which housed a casino right next the the river . The hotel was run down, some of the non-gambling people looked sketchy, the hotel was not welcoming; not a good set up.

Ya know you’re in a classy area when your neighboring hotel is the “Pair-A-Dice” hotel. It was pouring down rain which was thrown horizontal by the wind; thunder and lightening were going off for solid 45 minutes. I looooooved that! I was starving and my choices: icky, smoky casino restaurants, bars, or…..fast food. The whole casino area was isolated.

I really had no choice. I eat fast food maybe twice a year and only because I don’t have a choice. Wendy’s Chili was respectable and except for the considerable sodium load, not that bad.

It was a treasure to visit with my 95 year old Aunt. She’s had a few major setbacks lately and I was so happy to visit her. She’s always been such a bright, sunny and happy woman.

I didn’t necessarily expect to get to see my cousin, who created Uncle Bob’s Homemade Ice Cream, but I did. If you’re in the area, you know it! My Aunt is known in her assisted living facility as Uncle Bob’s Mom😊 Bob’s wife Carol is such a delight and it was fun to visit for a bit.

She whipped up this plate to nosh on while we talked. Wow, so pretty, so yummy, on a proper desert plate no less!

Later that day I drove to my hometown of Ottawa, Illinois and met my friend for dinner. You know how you have friends that you might only see every couple of years, but it’s like you never left? Yeah, it was like that. My heart was so full after that day: my Aunt, my cousin and my childhood friend in one day.

Before I left Ottawa, I HAD to have a Fried Pork Tenderloin sandwich:

That’s how it’s supposed to look – tenderloin to bun ratio of 2:1 or more. IYKYK.

I walked that morning and drove around a bit to see some heartwarming sights:

Sunrise on my walk. 78 degrees and 100% humidity at 6 AM.

I realize my readers may not appreciate these photos, but I HAD to get corn and soybean photos. The tassels above are telling me that it’s late July

I really wanted to get a video of the soybeans in the wind, it’s so pretty. But it was dead calm that day.

Ottawa is set on the convergence of the Illinois and Fox Rivers. Its commerce for most of its existence was dependent upon the barges and other commerce around the river.

My childhood home, considerably improved with a 500′ addition and another bath. That tree is an unusual one, a Kentucky Coffee Tree; it’s huuuuge.

Some older parts of town are built around this beautiful boulevard.

There are still some surviving brick streets!

Downtown had all these beautiful flower beds along the streets.

The church I grew up in. Lots of memories there.

Fun facts about Ottawa: home of the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate (Ottawa was active in the Abolitionist movement), the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated there, site of the Radium Dial factory. There are silica sand deposits in the area used by the local glass manufacturing plant. Population around 18,000 and now people from Chicago will drive to the area to spend the weekend. Starved Rock, Buffalo Rock and Matthiessen Parks are all nearby.

I got up early Sunday morning to drive to the Iowa Quilt Museum (another post) and then on to Omaha, NE for the night, before I flew home on Monday. I visited the Omaha Quilter’s Guild previously and had a grand time. Omaha is a lovely town with lots of delightful infrastructure. Omaha is Warren Buffet’s home and he is very generous to the city; it shows.

The Lewis & Clark Landing at the Riverfront Park is just delightful……well much more so on a milder day. It was high 90 something with high humidity.

Omaha has great food too! I ate here last time – Jam’s. I don’t usually post food photos, but…

The. Best. Shrimp Ceviche ever. Oh my, the tomatoes at their peak, everything at its peak, shrimp perfectly cooked. I didn’t know Ceviche could be this notable.

And then the next day in the wee hours, I was off to Sacramento.

My welcome home committee! Lucky me.

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday