Category: Place

We recently went on a trip to a neat little nature spot in the west Chicago suburbs called Red Oak Nature Center. Easy to miss, but well worth checking out. Anyhow, I thought I’d share some pictures from that excursion; I can only presume it’s even prettier in the summer and autumn!

I managed to photograph several geese, but not the hawk we saw while walking one of the trails. I did get pictures of the small cave near the riverbank, though! It’s called Devil’s Cave (or Cave of the Spirit), and there’s a really neat legend behind that. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to photograph the placard. Oh well. You’ll just have to check it out yourselves!

As a bonus, the nature center itself had some absolutely stunning flowers in a pot near the doors!

This weekend, we drove to a GeekCraft Expo in Madison. It was smaller than I expected, but it made up for it with cool stuff and friendly people. 

The cafeteria in the building had a sign plastered over the door that said “Mos Eisley Cantina,” which added to the geek vibe, but, unfortunately, the menu had not been geeked. There were no Star Wars foods, just burgers and brats.

The actual Expo was in a small room, with only a few rows of booths. There were geeky words, geeky images and a general air of geekiness. I saw booths with embroidered references, punny cards, and create-your-own superhero masks. There was a coloring book with assorted organs, handmade dice sets, and interesting soaps. For the full list of venders, go here.

Probably my favorite booth was one with crossover drawings. There was a Princess Leia water-bending, Sokka dressed as Han Solo, Zuko as a Sith, and Kaylee knocking on the door of the TARDIS (which I couldn’t find a link for, sorry!).

Yup, now I’m talking about the town. For those of you who have no clue why I started this week’s post like this, go back and read last week’s. For those of you who do know what I’m talking about, congratulations! What, you thought there was a prize or something? Give yourself a hearty pat on the back, then. Anyways, what was I talking about? Oh, right, Niagara Falls. Yeah, the Canadian town, not the American one. I already made that distinction in the title, didn’t I?

Right, so, while the town is named after the Falls, there’s so much more to do than stare and thousands of gallons of water falling over a cliff. That’s because the downtown seems to be one huge tourist trap, particularly Clifton Hills. What’s Clifton Hills, you ask? It’s the name of a street. A street with a slope. So it’s a hill. Thus, the name. Where did they get Clifton from, you ask? I don’t know, look it up.

Clifton Hills is home to the SkyWheel, both indoor (glow-in-the-dark) and outdoor (has-a-volcano-and-life-size-dino-statues) miniature golf, an arcade, and a whole bunch of rides (click here for one, two, and three), all of which are included on the Clifton Hills FunPass! In the area, but most of them not technically on Clifton Hills, there are also multiple wax museums (the one we went to), mazes, haunted houses, and three different Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museums (the one we went to), because that’s just the sort of stuff that tourists like. I mean, why not? When you can listen to an animated head talk at one of Ripley’s museums, or take a picture in front of an Avengers 1 poster–that strangely also has Batman and the Joker–while you give Iron Man a high-five, why wouldn’t you want to? If you drive out a little bit, you can go to Bird Kingdom, where the main room alone would be amazing, without all of the smaller rooms leading up to it! You can feed the birds in a little room, or hold your arm out and have a parrot sit on it in another, and, of course, for these experiences you can’t take your own pictures because they’ll take some and then try to sell them to you. Why? Because it’s another way of getting money out of tourists. But hey, it was fun!

And of course, the shops. Everywhere. You can buy merchandise with Niagara Falls branding, merchandise with Canada branding, and merchandise that are seemingly utterly irrelevant to where you’re buying them, but hey, that shirt looks comfy, so I’ll buy it anyways! Or, you know, real Kinder eggs are illegal to bring into the US because they have toys in food, so why not eat a few in Canada, where they’re practically everywhere? And there’s even a Hershey’s store! Yum!

There were nearly as many restaurants as stores, because where there are tourists, there are mouths to feed! And why not have imported chain restaurants like Hard Rock Café, Rainforest Café, and Margaritaville there, even though the American tourists should really be trying something new? In their defense, all three of those restaurants are decent quality. But Burger King? I mean, I could understand one, just to provide a quick and cheap option. But there are three Burger Kings in the immediate downtown area. That’s a tad overkill.

I was originally planning to go into heavy detail about all of this, but then I realized that that post would be far to long. So instead, you get heavy sarcasm interspersed with a quick description of an entire town! Enjoy!

Recently, my mother and I visited Niagara Falls, Canada. Yes, that is the name of the city. To make it incredibly confusing, the city on the American side is Niagara Falls, New York. But I intend to talk about the Canadian side. Next week, about the rest of the town, but today, I want to talk about the Falls themselves.

They are magnificent. I had only seen one waterfall in person before, Multnomah Falls near Portland, Oregon, and those had been alongside a green cliff face, so you naturally saw it from the top, and it didn’t seem to be all that powerful, just beautiful. Niagara Falls, on the other hand, are at ground level at the top and drop into a gorge, so you could see the sheer force of the water tumbling over the Falls at terrifying speeds. Can you believe somebody rode a barrel down that???

We also got to see it up close from the Hornblower boat, which is the Canadian version of the Maid of the Mist (the American side gets blue ponchos, the Canadian side gets red ponchos, and the people standing within mist zone but not on a boat on either side get yellow ponchos). We got to stand right in the mist of the large fall, known as Horseshoe Falls, while on the boat. The other two Falls are the Bridal Veil Falls and the American Falls, which are located next to each other and, between the two of them, dump out about 175,000 gallons of water a second.

All summer long, at night, the falls are lit with giant strobe lights, turning them all shades of the rainbow, and to accompany the lighting, there’s a small-ish* firework show that goes on. It gets pretty crowded, but it’s worth the view. As one could expect, they have light-up toys for sale during the show.

 

*I only really have my local 4th of July firework show as comparison, so to me, it was small, but that’s probably because they do it every night.

Alright, you are not actually eating robins. Red Robin is a family friendly, well-priced burger place with wonderfully attentive waiting staff. It has become a family favorite, from eating lunch on our way to a friend’s place to eating dinner before a movie at our local movie theater.

Food

As I said, you are not actually eating robins. While they are a burger place, they do serve other food, not just the standard American burger and chicken nuggets. For instance, most recently I got the Clamdigger’s Clam Chowder (cup, not bowl) for $2.99. It came in a small portion, but it was creamy with chunks of clam. They also have bottomless sides for most things. In other words, you will never run out of fries. This is good, since the fries are quite satisfying, as steak fries with extra seasoning. They also have bottomless lemonades, sodas, and more! Now, being a burger restaurant, they do (go figure!) have burgers. One of these burgers (the only one that I can presently remember the details for, thus the one I mention here) is the Burnin’ Love Burger for $9.59. This burger is a mouthful, with jalepeños, salsa, pepperjack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, chipotle mayo, and a cayenne-seasoned burger patty.

Service

The service does not disappoint either. With a smile on their face, the waitstaff will make sure you are always supplied with your bottomless (and otherwise) sides and beverages. They are always friendly, well timed, and very informative. If your refill of fries is delayed because they are making a new batch, they will tell you such. You don’t even have to wait to pay! They have a little computer system at each table so you can pay and leave. It also has games like Plants vs. Zombies 2 on it to entertain kids that don’t have devices with them. (I personally don’t see the point, but hey, some people would pay to play those games. Me? I’d either bring in my own phone, or, more likely, a book).

Facility

The facilities are also quite nice. Some of them have a bar area for the adults. The tables are well spaced, so it doesn’t feel crowded, but it doesn’t feel eerily empty either. The lights are at just the right brightness, bright enough so you aren’t squinting to see the menu, but you aren’t taken aback by the bright, unnatural colors. They play rock music at a medium-low volume. The walls and ceiling are vastly decorated with an assortment of mismatched pictures and displays, which reminds me of my room. Another big thing is that it is always clean. I have yet to see a Red Robin facility that I am not satisfied with.

Other Stuff

While you can call and pick up, Red Robin does not deliver. It does not have a drive through since it is not officially fast food, but it also takes much less time than sit-down. They have approximately 540 locations across the country.

Overall

Overall, I like this restaurant. Clearly, they carry more than burgers. You can order ahead of time and pick up, or you can sit in. It is good for when you have time for more than fast food, but not enough time for a full-blown sit-down meal. The expansive menu, quality food, and cheerful service have never failed to brighten my mood.

 

Good news, guys! This is my last Philadelphia post. When I think of Philadelphia, I think of the Liberty Bell, the Declaration House, and our Founding Fathers. It makes sense, when you think about it. Philadelphia used to be the capital of the United States, and so a lot of important historic stuff happened there.

The whole city was littered with random statues and memorials. There were many statues of Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington in particular, including this image of George Washington talking to Ben Franklin.

Unfortunately, the Declaration House was closed to tourism at the point when we happened across it, but we took some pictures from the outside. The Declaration House is where Thomas Jefferson first drafted the Declaration (excluding any drafting he had done within his mind, of course). There were tours at the monument shown in the lower left, but the line was long enough we didn’t go in. While I didn’t go in, I can tell you that it is called Independence Hall.

The lower right was interesting: I thought that when the map said “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” they were talking about the big one, which confused me. After all, as I recall it, that’s in Virginia. Well, it turns out that this Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is designated for Washington’s men from the Revolution. The entire park is a burial ground, with hundreds of bodies interred there. In the same park, there was the Moon Tree, which, as I understand it, was one of 500 trees taken to the moon and back on Apollo XIV when it was just a seed, and is now growing healthily in Philly.

And of course, there’s the Liberty Bell. The monument is part of the National Park Service, and has not only the Bell itself but also tons of information on the history of the Bell, and it’s symbolic purpose over the years. Though it can no longer ring literally, it continues to ring through the spirit of all who read it’s amazing past.

Yup, another post about Philadelphia, and arguably one of the most important. After all, you have to eat at some point during your stay, right? And why not try something new? Over the course of our stay, we made a point of not eating at chain restaurants to get the authentic Philly experience. I mean, Subway is okay, but I can get that back home just as easily as in Philadelphia.

Alright, first off, let’s talk about Philly cheesesteaks. I don’t know how other places serve it, but where we got it in the Reading Terminal Market, it really did just taste like an Italian Beef sandwich, and occasionally you’d have trouble biting a string of cheese and remember it was there. Granted, I like Italian Beef, so no complaints there!

Then we get to the restaurants themselves. Our hotel had an adjoining farm-to-table restaurant called Urban Farmer. The seating was wacky and fun, the food was fresh (as it should be) and tasty, and the entire place just felt homey. As I’ve found, most of the places I went in Philly didn’t put ice in the water, but in this case, it just contributed to the colloquial feel of the restaurant. I got an orange juice (I was feeling unoriginal), which was fresh-squeezed, and a Pear French Toast, with pear compote and pear slices adorning giant towers of bread. My mother got an English muffin with her omelet; the muffin was so huge that we just had leftovers for lunch that day.

Our first lunch in Philly was at a small ramen place in the local Chinatown called Yamitsuki Ramen (huh, I wonder what they serve?). It was a nice little place that feels like it should have kicked in claustrophobia, but didn’t. The water was served in little beakers, and the cold tea came in Mason jars. I got a refreshing mint and blueberry tea, as well as a pork and sweetcorn ramen. The pork was huge and had to be cut up just so that I could get to the noodles, which were under the gargantuan meat and pile of corn. My ramen also had what the internet (source here) tells me is called narutomaki, or Japanese fishcake. What’s funny is, to me, it didn’t taste like fish!

I mentioned in my Pack Up + Go post that they planned us a dinner reservation. The reservation was for a nice restaurant in the neighborhood called Garces Trading Company. Like a lot of fancy places, the lights were dim, but not so dim that I couldn’t read easily. They had an entire bar of olive oil and vinegar for the breads! I capped out at one slice of bread, though the bread was good, to save room for my minestrone and homemade mozzarella. Usually, I wouldn’t have ordered a minestrone, seeing as I can and do get those back home, but I noticed on the menu that their minestrone had asparagus and something called cranberry beans. That isn’t what I would usually imagine a minestrone to contain, so I tried it. And homemade mozzarella, well, it’s homemade mozzarella. Do I really have to justify that? After dinner, they brought out dessert. I had a chocolate mousse with pistachios and raspberries on top.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to mention the nice Mexican restaurant we went to for dinner on Sunday. El Rey is, again, a small restaurant, and one of the two Mexican restaurants on Pack Up + Go’s recommendation list. The difference? El Rey still had seats open, whereas El Vez didn’t. At El Rey, I got tamarind juice (yes, juice, not the soda) and three tamales, one chicken, one pork, and one veggie. Unlike most tamales I’ve had, the toppings were actually on top of the corn stuffs (yes, I know, very scientific terminology). For dessert, I had rice pudding flan, and Mom had a chocolate rendition of pastel de tres leches.

Overall, there was so much to eat in Philadelphia, it was almost overwhelming, but all of the food that we did get to try was delicious!

Philadelphia related post number two: Animal-related stuff. Today I’ll be talking about the Academy of Natural Sciences [of Drexel University], the Adventure Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo. 

First up: the Academy. We never would have known about this awesome little museum if it weren’t for Pack Up + Go: the envelope they sent us included two tickets, so of course we decided to capitalize upon the opportunity.

The Academy surprised me: the outside was modest and easy to miss in the crowded city, but the interior was expansive. It was like the TARDIS: bigger on the inside. One of the largest rooms there housed several (kinda scary) fossils ranging from sea turtles to mosasaurs. Did you know that the mosasaurs’ closest living relative is the Komodo Dragon? Or that it used to live in Kansas, where there was once (or maybe two or three times over history, I don’t know) a sea in the middle of what is now the continental US?

There was a kids’ area with all sorts of little critters and a butterfly house to walk through, but what stood out most to me were the dioramas. They had entire hallways of statues upon statues, so lifelike that you almost thought the tiger in front of you would suddenly start breathing, or the rabbit would break out of it’s trance and hop away. This stunning aspect was implemented by the impressive scenery to display the habitat and the other creatures in the scene suggesting an ecosystem and not just an image.

After we finished exploring the Academy, we took a lunch break, then caught a ride over to New Jersey. Apparently, Camden is a big crime town, but the Aquarium was great. We arrived in time to watch the hippos eat cabbages, stared at a bunch of jellyfish, then walked over a metal bar (with netting) a couple feet above a bunch of sharks. We also watched penguins fight over little fish and bought some delicious cinnamon sugar donuts.

My favorite part of the aquarium was probably the multitude of critters to pet. I got to pet a stingray, a shark, a starfish, and even a shrimp! I passed on petting the crab and the lobster, even though the lobster’s claws were rubber-banded shut.

On Monday we went to the Philadelphia Zoo, which is the oldest zoo in the US. I finally got to see both a golden lion tamarin and a flamingo up close (which have both been on my to-see list for ages), stood five feet directly under a leopard, and stood a similar five feet directly under a red panda.

I got to be so close to these animals thanks to the Zoo360 program, which follows a series of suspended wire trails throughout the zoo, which the animals take turns having free range. From what I’ve seen, they have one path for the little critters (mostly primates, and, apparently, red pandas) and one for the big cats, as well as a similar trail on the ground outside the meerkat enclosure for them. The goats have a bridge that goes over the sidewalk, and some of the other monkeys have a climbing structure that takes them exceptionally near a parallel human climbing structure.

There were a bunch of games, selfie machines and other interactive exhibits to engender a learning environment, which I thought was ingenious. If you want the kids to learn while they’re on vacation, you have to convince them that they want to learn, right? Anyways, I appreciated it.

For all the Whovians out there, I have something for you! In Elgin, there’s a small sandwich shop called the Blue Box Café. At the Blue Box Café, you can get coffee and sandwiches, purchase Doctor Who themed souvenirs, and watch Doctor Who.

The merchandise was cool. I appreciated that it didn’t sprawl everywhere, but I do wish there was a little more of it. There were a lot of Blue Box Café shirts and stuff, as well as Dalek mugs and Cybermen action figures.

When we were there, they were playing the Peter Capaldi episode Dark Water and it’s sequel, Death in Heaven. They had the subtitles on, and no volume, which made sense, given the din of the Café.

Alright, I know, I know. It’s a café, and I have to mention the food. I was disappointed. There wasn’t an option for fish fingers and custard. In all honesty though, the food they had was great. I had the turkey ranch sandwich, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I also had a caramel apple cider, which was delicious.