And One More Combined Travel Memory and Northern Illinois Destination: Cantigny Park, Wheaton, Illinois

I’m due for another Northern Illinois Destination, and since I have another 1979 travel memories that is also a Northern Illinois Destination, I figured why not?  I don’t think that travel memories and Northern Illinois/South Texas destinations will ever converge like this again. The next Illinois travel memory, from 1980, will be Central Illinois.

The McCormick family were kind of a big deal in Chicago. Cyrus McCormick, Sr. held a patent on a mechanical reaper which changed the face of agriculture forever. The reaper was also the basis for the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which was later folded into International Harvester Company and is now Navistar International Corporation.

Another founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company was Cyrus’s younger brother, Leander McCormick. Leander was something of a real estate magnate.  Leander’s great-grandson, Robert R. McCormick, grew up in the McCormick mansion on Rush Street, a building that was, for most of my life, the Chez Paul restaurant in Chicago.  As an adult Robert was a politician and a soldier, first with the Illinois National Guard, then in the United States Army, where he served during World War I and reached the rank of Colonel.  People referred to him as “Colonel McCormick” for the rest of his life.

After the war, McCormick founded a farm in Wheaton, Illinois, which he named for the Cantigny region of France.  He and both his first and second wives lived there for the rest of their lives, and the farm is now a public park.  Entrance into the park is free, but there is a parking fee.  At the time I write this, the parking fee is $5 during the early hours in the day, but later in the day, the price drops to $2.

We toured the house and probably also the First Division Museum, which documents the history of the First Infantry Division, which had been McCormick’s division when he was in the Army.

The farmlands are now gardens.  As you probably could guess, from my previous comments about being most interested in books and plants, this is what I remember best. The gardens of Cantigny are pretty well-known, apparently, though they have probably changed quite a bit in the 36 years since I was there. One of the most famous is the rose garden.  My parents and I saw the most fascinating rose there.  The petals were white on one side and red on the other.  Years later, I asked my mom where we had seen that rose, and she denied ever having seen such a thing.

And when I was going through the old photograph albums doing the scanning, I found the rose.  It’s an SX-70 photo, so it doesn’t nearly do the rose justice, but nevertheless here it is:

Cantigny rose with red and white petals
Rose with red and white petals from our trip to Cantigny.

The house, museum, and grounds are all handicap accessible.  Additionally, the park has a tram service for those who cannot walk between the attractions.  I do not know if the trams can handle wheelchairs, however.

My Travel Memories (also a Northern Illinois Destination): Galena, Illinois

In 1979, we also took a several-day trip to Galena, Illinois.  We stayed at what is apparently the ski resort in Galena.  It was the off-season, so we got to stay there for less than the ski season cost and it was a lovely trip.

Westward view from Galena Illinois.
The view westwards towards the Mississippi River from the top of the ski lift.

We went into downtown Galena and enjoyed the small-town ambiance.  We also walked down to the Mississippi River just to do it and walked along the banks through clouds of dragonflies (or maybe they were damselflies, I’m not much of an entomologist, and this was 36 years ago).

I also got to go horseback riding for the second time in my life.  My first time horseback riding, two years earlier with my Girl Scout troop, had been . . . unexciting.  Since I was the smallest girl in my Girl Scout troop, I got the “gentlest” horse, which was also the slowest.  As the group walked, I fell further and further behind.  Eventually the person leading our group saw me way, way back there and literally dragged the horse up to the rest of the group.  I feared that the same thing would happen on this vacation, but, to my surprise (and pleasure) they gave me a horse with a bit of pep and I was able to keep up with the group.

My parents and I went on a riverboat.  It wasn’t a big paddlewheel boat, but it was a nice outing up and down the river.  This was the farthest west I had ever been in my life, so it was pretty momentous.

And, since my mom had a thing for historic houses, we fit at least two in, that I can remember. With the aid of photographs, I was able identify one house as the Dowling House, which was the oldest building in town.

The other was more memorable.  It was the big red brick house that is now the Ulysses S. Grant State Historic Site.  It’s a red brick house, where Grant lived.  Apparently, he only stayed in Galena for eight years (four of which were the Civil War, so that makes it actually four years, I guess) and once he was elected President, he never returned.  That’s a ringing endorsement of Galena if I’ve ever head one, so I don’t think I’d want to live there myself.  As a place for my family to take their first “just the three of us” vacation, though, it was quite pleasant indeed.

Northern Illinois Destinations: Taste of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

This was originally scheduled to be posted on Independence Day of 2015, only I was just getting the hang of writing posts and scheduling them for later, so I accidentally posted it on June 22.  I’ve triple-checked and made sure that my attempt to pre-schedule this post worked.  I’m typing this paragraph on July 10, 2015, but if all goes as planned, it should post on July 20, 2015.


 

I figured I would start the Northern Illinois Destinations posts with one of my family’s Fourth of July traditions, the Taste of Chicago Festival in Grant Park, Chicago.  I cannot remember specifically what year we started going to Taste of Chicago.  The festival started in 1980, so it certainly couldn’t have been any earlier than that.  We started bringing the man who eventually became my husband, and then, years later, my ex-husband, in 1989 or so, so it must have been earlier than that.  For the record, the Taste of Chicago is no longer held on the Fourth of July weekend.  The last Fourth of July Taste of Chicago apparently was in 2011.  In 2015, the Taste of Chicago will be held July 8 through 15.

My parents and I had a traditional pattern for doing the Taste.  We would walk the entire thing once to get the lay of the land, then we would buy our tickets and make another pass and buy our food.  We traditionally got ribs, chicken wings, Chicago style hot dogs (though I cannot digest onions so I would scrape mine off), turtle soup (from the now-defunct Binyon’s.  Frankly, the turtle was sort of optional — most people ate the turtle soup for the sherry), and chocolate-covered strawberries.  Whatever else we bought would vary based on what was available that year.

I went back with my now-ex a few times after we moved to Texas and my parents retired to Florida.  We didn’t have the specific routine that my folks and I did.  Then, after my ex and I split up, my son and I made a return visit in 2010.

The food is not the only reason to go to Taste of Chicago.  No, I’m not talking about beer, though if that’s your thing, have at it (I don’t drink, myself.  I come from a family of alcoholics and my distaste for the flavor of alcohol is not worth attempting to get over if that is the fate that would lie ahead of me).  I’m talking about two other things:  the music and the people-watching.  There is usually a big headliner act in the band shell at night.  One year the act was Chicago and I made my folks hang around the park for a few extra minutes just so that I could catch part of the concert.  There are also smaller stages that have musicians  throughout the day.

If you ever plan to attend Taste of Chicago, remember that it may be, as the saying goes, “cooler by the lake,” but it’s not necessarily that much cooler.  Plan for it to be about the same temperature downtown as it is wherever your hotel/host/home is and dress accordingly.  Some years the temperature was a balmy 80 degrees Fahrenheit or so.  Other years, it has been in the high 90s.

(originally posted on June 22, 2015)