Land of Lincoln

Over the summer between our trip to Malaysia and our trip to Illinois, we heard that one of our professor friends had died suddenly on a conference trip. We were all surprised, he was relatively young, and had seemed in good health before he left. Richard was a constant figure in our lives in China, we often ate lunch together, and due to his dislike of cell phones, I did most of his online shopping there for him. He would find something he liked, send me the link and I’d pick it up for him. He is definitely missed around campus.

In our original Illinois plans, Richard was going to be in Urbana for some of the same time that we were and it would overlap. Richard loved baseball and had made plans to travel around Illinois and the surrounding states to watch both major and minor league teams in as many places as he could during that time. We had already been planning to go to a Cubs game, and thought that this would be a good memorial for our friend.

Alex got to get a new Cubs hat just for the occasion, and we were watching the Cubs vs the Oakland A’s. Alex had just seen Moneyball not long before this and was super excited to get to see them play.

It was a good game, not crazy crowded although the stadium was mostly full. We were able to get pretty good seats for not too much- and we even lucked out with parking! It was a weekday game and we didn’t know that the free parking lot with shuttle bus wouldn’t be running. We had given up trying to find street parking and were just going to pay $25 for a paid lot, when the nice kid running the lot pointed across the street where someone had just left and vacated a nice free space just big enough for our car.

It was a good game, the Cubs won by 9 runs. Alex was thrilled to be there again for a winning game. It was a nice way to do our own little memorial for Richard since there was nothing done at the university.

I didn’t really get any pictures of them, but I was extremely lucky to have some new friends come all the way out to Urbana to hang out with us. My friend Nic put a group of women together in an app called Marco Polo where we can send videos to each other, think Facetime but not live. This works out well for all of us in different time zones (when I’m home in China I’m between 12 and 15 hours ahead of these ladies). Even after only a couple months of talking, when I told them I was coming back for a visit, they decided to come by for a reunion with Nic and a girls’ week.

It was great, we had such a good time hanging out, getting to know each other better, and doing fun toursity stuff around the Urbana area. Despite being in the Urbana area for roughly 8 years (Mark’s grad school and then when we moved back with Alex) I had never stopped to see some of this little local treasures.

We started at the Lincoln house, which while being really cool, I was disappointed to find out that Abraham Lincoln never lived there- only his father did. Kind of a let down, but whatever. What’s neat about this place is that it is a reenactment of the time (Think Colonial Williamsburg but much much smaller) so they have people in the cabins with fires burning in August, knitting and quilting, and working farmer folks. It was a neat experience.

There was a chicken coop, with some of the loudest chickens I have ever heard, and some fairly lazy cows having a nap in the heat.

This was the inside of the main house, I couldn’t believe that in the heat of August, a poor women had to dress up in all the old layers of clothes and sit in this room with the fire going to work. Although the fire did help keep the mosquitoes and flies away.

On that same trip, we also headed to Arthur, which is a small Amish town in Illinois. We had a nice lunch at a famous place (I can’t for the life of me remember the name) and it was packed, I couldn’t believe how many people were waiting around.

And then we went to Beachy’s… Beachy’s is a place I had heard about for a long time, it’s a bulk store that is Amish run and has all sorts of interesting things available in bulk, and lots of fresh baked goods and old school candy too. I ended up buying some small pies, a large bag of Lucky charms marshmallows only, some interesting sprinkles, a variety of old candy (like jelly rings and jelly fruit slices) and most importantly cheese curds. I don’t think I’ve talked about cheese curds on the blog, and if you’re from the Wisconsin/ Minnesota area you’ll already know about them. Basically it’s a cheese that hasn’t aged at all, right after the cheese is separated from the whey. It could go on to become a cheddar, or it could be eaten right then. Now there are a lot of opinions about what constitutes a good cheese curd or what the right way to eat them is ( deep fried, plain, over french fries with gravy on them– I’m looking at you Canada) but to me, the best way is just plain out of the bag. And you know it is good and fresh when the cheese makes a squeeky sound when you bite it.

I never knew I was going to have such a strong opinion about cheese curds, but that’s the result of being Minnesotan by marriage. When we go visit my in laws in Minnesota, we also stop into Mall of America, for fun too but mostly to get cheese curds from Ribicky’s, a Wisconsin shop in the mall with a variety of cheeses, packers gear and cheese curds. I personally like to get the cajun flavored ones, but that’s mostly because no one will eat those but me so I don’t have to share.

This was a long tangent to tell you that I found really great cheese curds at Beachy’s and they were almost as good as Ribicky’s.

And like every good tourist in Amish country, we had to get some pictures of the horse and buggies parked outside the store.

We also took some time to go to the St. Joe’s Fair, which Nic and I had taken Alex too not long before we left for China. This time we brought Laura and Abby (the new friends who flew in, I think Angie might have been in Florida then) and we got to see Nic’s girls Brynn and Lily perform their dance routine at the Fair.

This year Alex had Brynn to go on rides with, so it was a little more fun for him. They rode the Berry Go Round more than once I think. And had Lemon Shakeups, and I think shaved ice too.

Brynn is a lot like Alex in a lot of ways, and I think their energies play off each other well. It was great for Alex to have a friend (really friends, but Lily isn’t into the rides as much) to do the fair with.

They waited so long to go on this ride, the line was forever long, and they were so excited….

This was their faces after getting off, they thought it was a little scary and a bit too much and “why didn’t you warn us it would be so scary?” But really they had fun with it.

Laura and Abby weren’t able to stay long, as they both had things back to do at home, but it was so lovely and nice to spend time with them and to have this amazing group of women who all cared enough to spend their free time with me. I am forever grateful for the time we got to spend getting to know each other and look forward to spending more time together eventually!