There is much to be learned from getting out there in the world and seeing places different from your home. There is also much to be learned about a person by seeing the place they come from. Having spent my life in the Pacific Northwest, and never having seen the Midwest, I was excited to to along with my Adventure Partner, Corey to visit his family and hometown in rural Illinois. Not only would this be my first time in the Midwest, but it would also be my first time on an airplane in 10 years. This was bound to be a big adventure.
We started out the trip visiting friends in Chicago, and I was on a mission to try some local foods. I was not disappointed by the Chicago deep dish pizza and Chicago style hot dogs. They are serious about their toppings in Chicago. They don’t skimp.
Another highlight of our time in the city was a Jack White concert at the Chicago Theater. I had been listening to him for years and never managed to see him live, so I felt very lucky that when I finally did, he ended up playing the longest show of his career with a 50 minute encore!
For one lovely afternoon, I geeked out on natural history at the Chicago Field Museum. We spent a few hours looking at exhibits of animals from all over the world, Egyptian mummies and plants. There was an entire botany exhibit. I could have easily spent all day.
Outside the museum I spotted some familiar wildlife. This red-winged blackbird was warbling away in the flower beds until I walked by to take a picture of the museum. I must have walked too close to a nest because he proceeded to attack me and pulled at my hair! I’m still not sure how I managed to have one of my closest encounters with wildlife in the middle of Chicago. This was equally reassuring and unsettling at the same time. I am thankful it wasn’t a bear.
And while we are on the subject of attack animals…while walking through a somewhat rough area, I took comfort in this sign. Apparently chickens are useful everywhere. Even in the big city.
From Chicago we rode a train through the cornfields to an un-staffed station in Mattoon where we were greeted by Corey’s parents. From there, things got just about as different from Chicago as you could get, with sprawling fields of corn and soybeans broken up by hills and hollers covered in deciduous forests. I fell immediately in love with the landscape term, “hollers.” Having been around farmland in the Northwest, I was expecting vast expanses of uninterrupted crops, and had not expected to see quite so many trees. They were a welcome sight.
From Corey’s folks’ place in Robinson, we visited his tiny hometown of West Union where he recalled their old fashioned fourth of July celebrations in the park and the creek he used to play in as a boy. I truly enjoyed the tour of his childhood home and felt like I got to know him a little better from the experience. We visited some local, out of the way places like the Moonshine Store where I enjoyed an Illinois pork burger, we ate catfish supper served family style on a big plate, and stopped at flea markets with farm antiques that made me wish we had driven there in a truck! Corey’s mom gave me a tour of his childhood via all the treasures she had saved in their attic, and packed some up to take home in a suitcase. We spent the days playing with the twin niece and nephew and holding the brand new great niece. It was a lot of good family time.
One afternoon we went over to the local Amish community to visit their store. I fell in love at first sight with the shelves of home canned goods and bakery items and wished we had an Amish store near us back at home. It was everything I love about the health food stores in Eugene but things were truly local, handmade and affordable. I couldn’t pass up the asparagus spears and bread and butter pickles. They were delicious.
I ate a lot of cantaloupe (also referred to as mush melon) and sweet corn on the trip. I had heard people from the Midwest talk about their corn and melons being far superior, and now I know what they’re talking about. Those melons were sweeter than candy and bigger than my head!
After some wonderful adventures and time with family, we were happy to get back home to the mountains and conifer forests of Oregon. We wasted no time in jumping right back into the homesteading life we love, and spent our first days back cutting firewood and digging potatoes. The Midwest was a grand place to visit, but there’s no place like my mountain home.
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