Labor Day in Lexington

We went to Lexington, Kentucky with Emily & Jack for Labor Day weekend. Here are some highlights of our trip. I'm sorry that the potato burrito was not documented, but I swear that burrito came straight from the Land of Awesome Food Dreams.

CHICK-FIL-A! THEIR WAFFLE FRIES ARE DELICIOUS

CHRISTIAN CHICKEN SANDWICH

GRAETER'S (OPRAH'S FAVORITE) RASPBERRY CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM (MY FAVORITE)

SKYLIFT TO NATURAL BRIDGE

THE FERN BELOW

CRACKER BARREL'S "EGGS IN A BASKET"

I guess I didn't get the memo

There is so much I want to post: Japan, nails, shopping, iPhone 4, moving...and more Japan. There's never enough about Japan. But all I can offer to the Internet right now are some photos from my recent quick trip to Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas.

Needless to say, it was hot. After nearly dying in the heat from walking around their garden for like, five minutes, here I am inside the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas with a Jeff Koons piece. The guard could tell I wanted a picture of it, so he kindly offered to take one of me with it. Thank you, kind guard!

My grandmother invited me to go to Dallas with her for the weekend. One of the things she wanted to do was to see Idina Menzel, who was set to perform with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. My aunt is the assistant conductor there (her left arm is in the picture below behind Idina Menzel), so she hooked it up with 6th row tickets. And by Idina Menzel, I mean, RACHEL BERRY'S BIRTH MOTHER. Here are some Dallasian (?) ladies, all dressed up to go to the symphony! This was quite a different crowd from my previous night at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Idina Menzel is so lovely, so humble, so beautiful in person. I didn't recognize some of her earlier Broadway songs, but she sang Glee songs--"Funny," "Poker Face," and "Defying Gravity." She also sang a lovely lullaby she made up for her son, Walker. My aunt continued the stellar hook-up with a backstage greeting and photo! I will keep the photo to myself because I look way too giddy in it. I mean, this is Rachel Berry's mother, everyone. I met Rachel Berry's mother. She made out with Mr. Shuester. She sang "Poker Face" with Rachel. WTF? My life is too sweet.

The first night, we stayed at the Ritz Carlton (a.k.a. Ritz Carleton Popperstein). That was the good life; I was most impressed by their bathroom and breakfast. The second night, a family friend, Teddy, generously let us stay at his house in Fort Worth. It was basically an upgrade from the Ritz (surround sound in every room, including bathrooms?), and I made breakfast with his fresh ingredients and top-of-the-line cookware. There was even a Totoro coffee cup!

Teddy lives down the street from Fort Worth's Museum of Modern Art and the Kimbell Art Museum. I like to think that he's neighbors with Ando Tadao and Louis Kahn. I love Ando's buildings. Here is a famous Anselm Kiefer piece in its own Ando enclave.

After cycling 63 miles (!!!) in Italy, Texas (last week he rode in Dublin, Texas, lol) Teddy took us to Fort Worth's stockyard district. Our trip would have been so dull without him. He took us to a delicious burger joint, and one store that had amazing cowboy boots. Like, the Chanel of cowboy boots. You can custom pick your leather; I liked the purple ridgeback alligator and turquoise stingray leathers (above; blurry closeup of the bubble-y side here).

Though I absolutely enjoy and appreciate visiting other parts of the country, it just makes me love Chicago more. I'm so glad to be back, and not in insane heat all the time. The one place that will probably never have that kind of effect on me though is Yokohama. There are so many Japan photos to sift through; I haven't even finished uploading them onto Flickr. But hopefully some more of those are coming up next! See you all here in like, three weeks, unless I run into Miguel Cabrera again. lol.

Carleton Adventures

This is the final installment of the Honeymoon Adventures. I appreciate the WWPD shoutout and comment from fashion blog star (pun intended) regarding my vacation wear, because I had fun with it and perhaps put forth more effort than usual. Food is always a good thing to document, as well. But here is another perspective that should not go untold.

"Are we there yet?"


"We'll guard the Travelodge room."


On the way to New Buffalo.


"It's raining."


"..."


"It's sunny."


An entire extra bed for the Poppersteins & Memu!


"A penguin, like me! I'm cuter."

If we took a plane to Detroit and I took all the Poppersteins, I'm absolutely certain TSA would dismember all of them to see if I'm transporting drugs. Thankfully, you can take as many bags as you want and put whatever you want in them when you're just driving across state lines.

New Buffalo Adventures

Down to the second to last installation of the Honeymoon Series. We arrived at the Marina Grand Resort later than we thought due to the rain, but just in time for check in. The weather was clear when we arrived, but hot and humid the whole time we were there, probably thanks to the passing rain. Here I am in the lobby. I think there was a wedding on the rooftop, and that someone left their Sprite on the log table next to me. Those are paintings of sweaters hanging on the wall, but that is a real dead tree behind me.

What would you do if you encountered this in a hotel lobby?

The Marina Grand website says that their interiors are inspired by Scandinavian and modern designs. We stayed in this room because there was nothing else available at the time we made reservations, so there was a whole bed for the Poppersteins (yes, you read that correctly). Indeed, everything is slick, but I wonder how long the chicness will last. I feel like it'll look really outdated in ten years. Anyway, it was a great room after spending two nights in a Travelodge room.

From top left, clockwise: goat cheese in marinara sauce with flatbread; my xoxoCILANTROxoxo and walnut pesto white(?)fish; Mordecai's salmon and mediocre mashed sweet potato; thick-ass lemon tart.

We ate at Bentwood Tavern, the restaurant connected to the resort. We were drinking beers when I heard someone talking about their seats being too close to the doors. The voice sounded incredibly familiar, even nostalgic. When I looked up, I saw none other than my sixth grade teacher, Ms. Ranalli! Who is no longer, but has a hyphenated name, I think. Anyway, yes, Ms. Ranalli as in the daughter of Ranalli's Pizza. She was vacationing with her family, and I got to see her kids. To this day, I think of her when I recall how I learned to write an expository essay, how I learned about ancient Greek cultures, and how kids can be cruel to teachers. BTW, she looked no different from her 1996 days. Amazing!

At night we took rented bicycles and rode to the beach nearby. It was both frightening and exhilarating at once. When we returned them, there was a fireworks show across the "harbor" right next to our room. Our view outside the windows basically looked like Diversey or Belmont harbor--a shit ton of docked boats.

When researching this general area, I came across a restaurant called Brewster's Italian Cafe. This excited me to no end. To me, Brewster is the pigeon in Animal Crossing who runs The Roost cafe below the museum. Brewster makes a good cup of coffee, and sometimes he puts a little pigeon milk in it. He doesn't like it when you let your coffee cool. Usually he's tight-lipped, but if you visit him frequently, he begins to open up. This is when your heart melts. Anyway, I was looking forward to this visit very much, which occurred the next day, regardless of how the food was. I have to say, I don't recall it being very memorable, and the portions were huge. But more importantly...BREWSTER'S CAFE!!!

We were going to the Warren State Dunes, but so was everyone else in the surrounding area. So we kept driving along whatever road we were on, and we came across CAPTAIN MIKE'S FUN PARK! Wow, what a creative name. But who is Captain Mike? I think his mom was running everything that day. It turned out to be quite entertaining. We took advantage of the batting cages, go-carts, and game room. In the extremely hot and humid game room, I won enough tickets for a childish bracelet, cheap plastic rings, and a deck of playing cards. The go-carts were awesome because I found $11 sitting by the brakes in my car. I stuck the money under my foot in my sandal, drove around the track as instructed, and took it out when I felt we were far enough away from the tracks. Hehe.

We then went to some smaller dunes that turned out to be exciting as well. We climbed the boardwalk thingie, and the view was nice, but a little smokey. I remember exchanging a few words with Mordecai about this, and we told ourselves it was someone's barbecue, specifically, CORN. It turned out to be a full fledged FIRE IN THE DUNES! The fire kept spreading, but it got boring so we started to play catch. Mordecai showed me how to properly grip a baseball to throw it. On top of running around, throwing and catching the ball, it was so hot, I thought I was going to melt.

We didn't start the fire...maybe the guy posing in the Speedo above my shoulder did.

For dinner, we went to Timothy's at Gordon Beach Inn.

Conch fritters; cheddar mashed potato; a bunch of stuff, including chipotle sauce and mango over red snapper; a bunch of stuff, including berries, over...some other kind of fish.

We were originally going to stay at Gordon Beach Inn, where Timothy's is located, until we read reviews online about how the building was old, the walls thin, and the noise from Timothy's prevents anyone from being happy. I then discovered the Marina Grand online, and we jumped ship. But we heard good things about Timothy's, and I was curious about Gordon Beach Inn, so we went for dinner. Let's just say I preferred our room at the Marina Grand. The food was good, except that there was so much going on in the entrees. I think they strive for a wide range of fresh ingredients, but they also try to put every ingredient on earth into your dish, which only amounts to not a whole lot. But the cheddar mashed potatoes were ON POINT.

We left around noon the next day. Chicago is not too far away, so the drive wasn't bad. Before leaving, we had some burgers somewhere nearby, and I saw this motorcycle in the parking lot. It was hard to take a picture of it because of the sparkles, but it was a most awesome bike. Sometimes Oji looks like that, except he's not snarling; his teeth just get caught in his lip. I thought of those three-wolves-and-moon shirt that got popular for a minute, but concluded that this bike is so much better than all those shirts and Amazon reviews/stories online combined.