Illinois

Illinois is largely flat, however, once you get to the southern part of the state, it's much more rugged. We have hills, and we have flood plains, and we have rocks, and we have an amazing array of resources for people to enjoy, just all around outdoors men. We even have wildernesses in Southern Illinois where you can actually get away from the sounds of humanity. We're in Piney Creek Nature Preserve. Piney Creek holds the largest rock art site in the state of Illinois, and it has over at least 200 different carvings and paintings that stretch back in time for 2,000 years.

Places that you can actually do some rock climbing would include Jackson Falls and Giant City. Giant City is a state park, and it has a number of really unique rock formations. The rock separated from the bluff, so it makes all these avenues or streets where you've got rock formations on both sides. Cashe River is really a slow moving river where you really just have a lot of Cyprus, swampy areas and you just kind of glide through it. It's like being back in almost prehistoric times. So, if you're visiting and you suddenly get hungry or feel like a snack, there's a couple of opportunities there for you to have championship BBQ. Try 17th Street Bar and grill, the BBQ there, whether it's the ribs or the pulled pork or brisket, is all sweetened with apples from nearby orchards, just absolutely excellent. Head down to Jacob, Illinois where the Bottoms Up Bar and Grill is located, and it's called Bottoms Up because it serves copious amounts of beer, as well as large amounts of fried chicken. You gotta go there too.

If you've never been to be Springfield, Illinois, we're right in the middle of the state, but at one time the Route 66 route went right by the Cozy Dog place we're sitting at right now. Springfield is known as the hometown of Abraham Lincoln here. You've got to hit the Abraham Lincoln home, you definitely got to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, that's the place where the Lincoln story comes full circle. We have quite a number of festivals that take place during the summer, but probably one of our biggest and most well attended events is our Route 66 Mother Road Car Show. It is one of the biggest car shows in America. The real famous thing about it is the Friday night car cruise, and that's when the near 2,000 cars line up, and they literally cruise right up 6th Street. The crowd will start yelling at the cars going by, "Light em' up, light em' up!" Every once in a while, they'll light 'em up alright, and I'll tell you, that is something to see.

So, after you've been around to the sites all day, no doubt you need a bit of a break and really the best place to go is gonna be our micro brewery here, called Obed and Isaac's, and they've got the beer garden with yard games and a bocce ball court. Another popular stop is the Maid-Rite sandwich shop, and they actually have the very first drive thru window in America, and you can pull up there and get yourself a loose steam burger. And the other thing you need to try while you're here in Springfield, you can get one at pretty much any restaurant in town, and that is the horse shoe, it was invented here in the early 1930s. It's a piece of Texas toast, you chose a protein like a chicken breast or a hamburger patty, and then the whole plate is covered in a plate full of french fries and then it is lovingly soaked in cheese sauce. If you've got a good cheese sauce, you've got yourself a good horse shoe. I kinda wanna go get one now.

Chicago's a huge city. Each neighborhood you go into, you will have a completely different experience. It's really easy to get around pretty much everywhere in Chicago. There are a ton of places around here. You can check out our local performing artists, we have everything from burlesque over at Kiss Kiss Cabaret, slam poetry we have over at the Green Mill Lounge, live music pretty much on every corner. The one thing I recommend is dancing. Head to one of our clubs like Subterranean, check out all the hiphop, house, we get some footwork music in there. So, footwork is the super fast moving of your feet. We made our own music to it. One place you should checkout: Fine Arts Building. It is a wanderer's dream, it's ten floors of just artist studios, dance studios, visual artists, beautiful old school elevator throws you all the way up to the 10th floor, and you just kind of wander and wind yourself back down ad you stop at whatever interests you.

Then obviously, you have to get some food and drinks while you're here starting with Portillo's, hotdogs, pick up a Maxwell Street polish with a chocolate cake shake on the side. Also, Cheesies is one of our grilled cheese bars, probably one of the more intense grilled cheeses you'll have in your life. Our arts community is very tight knit and we get our inspiration from each other, we like to work with each other and we like to show it to anyone who's willing to watch.