Friday, September 16, 2005

Rain!

It’s Friday morning, 9/16. We left Texas two weeks and one day ago. This is the first experience of other than near perfect weather we’ve had the entire time.

What’s great about that is: This weekend we have no outdoor activities planned. Well, other than maybe some sightseeing in and around Chicago. But all of our beach time in Florida and a solid week of great golf in Georgia was scheduled in unbeatable weather.

Yesterday was, as I had expected, a very long day of interstate driving. We mad about 625 miles in under 13 hours, including stops for breakfast, lunch and gas. (That’s fuel, not internal gas, for you purists).

Lots of big trucks were out on the roads, but we never ran into any really heavy traffic. The worst was as we approached Chicago from Indiana, and that’s about the time the cloudy sky began spitting occasional light rain.

We worried that we might be in the middle of a downpour when it was time to set up our camper, but the rain held off until after we had everything pretty much in place. When we left the campground to go find something for supper we drove out in a light steady rain, but by the time we were back after eating it was a steady moderate rain.

Later, as we lay in bed reading, came the downpour. Could have been a lot worse!

This morning the rain continues to come and go, with low clouds and a north wind. The forecast calls for clearing later today with moderate temperatures and no further rain for the rest of the weekend.

Our daughter Amy will drive out from downtown and pick us up later this morning. I plan to post this when we get to her apartment.

I promise to then regale you with tales of our last family visit of this vacation trip over the next three days, and tempt you with stories of the meals we plan to experience. As a teaser, I’ll tell you Amy’s plans.

She tells us she’s found a really good Mexican restaurant near her apartment, and plans to continue the tradition she started in Austin that Friday night is Mexican night. Then on Saturday she’ll take us to a fantastic Italian chain that she and her husband discovered called “Bucca di Beppo’s” (literally, Beppo’s basement).

Ha! I can tell you’re salivating already! (So am I.)

But when we get home it’s going to be diet, diet, diet.

4 comments:

the many Bs said...

Yes, I am salivating. They have one of those Buca de Beppo places in Seattle. I've never eaten there, but hear that the food is wonderful and the atmosphere is zany!

Nankin said...

There aren't any good Mexican restraunts in Chicago! I lived there 18 years and never, ever found one.

Duke_of_Earle said...

Schnoodlepooh: You need to try it some day. There is a Buca di Beppo's (yeah, I misspelled it from memory) in Austin that we went to with Amy about 6 months ago. It's whacky but wonderful.

Nankin: I guess it's all a matter of taste, but Amy took us to Lalo's Restaurant (downtown, inside the loop) and I thought they did a good job on the Carne Asada a la Tampiquena. The cheese enchilada on the side was different from the "Tex-Mex" ones I'm used to, but tasted good.

Anonymous said...

Lalo's is fantastic, but there are several amazing Mexican restaurants on the West side. Authentic Mexican restaurants, owned by real-live Mexican people (can you imagine?). There are also several upscale Mexican restaurants (if you feel like paying an exhorbitant amount of money for your food) in the city.

That said, I hope you enjoy Buca de Beppo, but if you're looking for good Italian, there's a couple other places I would recomment. I AM a food snob. I'd rather see you go to Rosebud or even Tuscany (on Taylor street, the old Italian neighborhood, more northern-Italian food). Rosebud is delicious (a little pricey), and the servings are ginormous. You'll be eating leftovers for days.