Keeping up with postings to this blog has turned out to be much harder than I ever imagined it would be. We generally have been reaching our destination each day around 6:00pm-7:00pm after 10 or 11 hours in the saddle. We get checked in to the hotel and then cast around for a place to get a bite to eat. By the time we are done with dinner, it is usually 9:30pm-10:00pm and we need to get some sleep so that we can be back on the road at 8:00am-8:30am the next day. That doesn't leave much time for anything else.
Anyway, we are now in Chicago. From Denver to here turned out to be a wasteland in terms of finding any interesting food to review (almost). I'm sure that the good folks of eastern Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa have some good restaurants somewhere, but I found no clues along the way that would point me towards any of them. I76 in Colorado and I80 through Nebraska and Iowa are long stretches of corn/soy beans, Omaha, corn/soy beans, Des Moines, corn/soy beans, Chicago. Out in corn/soy bean country, there are cross-roads along the interstate with truck stops that have Arby's, Subways, an occasional Perkins Resturant or Country Kitchen. The food available ranges from so-so to truly awful. I looked for signs along the interstate that might point to decent restaurants a few miles off the road and didn't find anything.
The one exception that we found was a restaurant we literally stumbled across the night we spent in Omaha. I asked the desk clerk (more on him below) at the hotel if he could point us to somewhere that might have a couple of restaurants so that we would have a choice. I explained that I was thinking of, perhaps, a shopping mall where there might be a collection like Applebee's, Chili's, Ruby Tuesday's and the like. Naturally, he sent us to a shopping mall, but there was not a single restaurant to be found. I stopped at a nearby gas station and repeated the question to the guy who worked there. He said he didn't know about a "collection" of restaurants, but he did know a really good one about a mile down the road. We followed his instructions and discovered the Millard Road House. It is on Millard Avenue in Omaha and about 50 businesses nearby are all called "Millard" lumber, hardware, cleaners.....well, you get the drift.
Millard Road House is a big wooden barn-like structure painted a dull red color. We pulled into the large parking lot around back and it was jammed. Good sign. The interior is sorta dark, but cozy with a large bar off to the right. The place was packed and we had to wait for a table over in the bar. The bar was having a tasting night for all the wine products from "Mad Housewife Winery". We sampled the chardonnay and then got called to our table. The menu is a large tri-fold affair with an amazing array of items. There are at least 30 appetizers. They have a large number of salads, sandwiches and entrees. I ordered the smothered chicken entree. That's a grilled chicken breast smothered with sauteed mushrooms and swiss cheese.
The very back page, however, is where you find the treasures. The place is widely known for it's "broasted" chicken. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's the frying under pressure method made famous by KFC. You can order a 2, 3 or 4 piece broasted chicken dinner and you can specify which pieces you want (thigh, wing, drumstick, breast or any combination). On that page, though is also listed 1/2 rotisserie chicken. That's what Susan ordered.
OMG!!! That was the single most delicious chicken dinner I have tasted. It was prepared with a rub containing salt, pepper, garlic and some other spices I cannot identify. What made it so good though, is that the cooking method somehow made those spices penetrate all the way down to the bone. The breast on that chicken was at least 2 inches thick, but every bite of it was saturated with those wonderful spices. Most excellent! If you are ever in Omaha (I know, why the hell would I ever go to Omaha), you have got to try this place.
We used Onstar again to book a room in Omaha. Given our criteria, the only place he could find was a Motel Six. When we drove up, my expectations were sent reeling downward. It was on an access road next to the interstate wedged between a Caterpillar heavy equipment rental place and an XPEDX distribution warehouse. The parking lot was half paved and half gravel with 18 wheel trucks parked out back with the engines running. The building itself was about as ugly and unappealing as it gets. The desk clerk was wearing a greasy baseball hat, a sweatshirt with the sleeves hacked off and a pair of flannel pajama pants. I guess I should have just been happy that he decided to get dressed at all that day. At this point, I was very unenthusiastic about staying the night. I went ahead and registered in spite of my misgivings. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. The room was old, but clean and quiet (couldn't hear the trucks). No problems.
Another long day on the road and we arrived in Chicago about 7:00pm. When we checked in the desk clerk told us that there would be fireworks down at the Navy Pier at 9:00. We hurried down there, got a table in a restaurant on the pier and had dinner while we watched fireworks. Although the food was strictly tourista bar food, it was a nice evening with perfect weather.
We were beat after 4 days on the road, so we slept in late Sunday morning. Then we had lunch along the Chicago Riverwalk and went to the Museum of Science and Industry. I really wanted to see the German U-Boat (U-505) captured intact by the US Navy during WWII and they also had a Harry Potter Exhibition that appealed to Susan. She is fan of those books.
When you first walk into the room where the U-505 is displayed, you are impressed with how big it looks. As you look at the various exhibits and follow the story of submarine warfare, you begin to realize how really small those things were. A standard submarine patrol was 100 days at sea and there were 59 men living and working inside. As anti-submarine techniques were improved, the U-Boats typically had to remain underwater for the entire 100 days. They would rise close to the surface running the diesel engines on air sucked in through the snorkel, but would never actually come to the surface. If you were claustrophobic at all, it wasn't for you.
The Harry Potter Exhibition consisted of costumes and props that were used in the various movies. They were staged in settings representing the more memorable scenes from the movies. It was interesting, but not very exciting. A LOT of little kids in there.
Today (Monday) we are going to sign up on the "get on, get off" all day tour bus and cruise the Magnificent Mile and other sights.
Pictures above: Kyaks on the river Sunday morning, Susan at Riverwalk, Chicago skyline at night from Navy Pier, fireworks from Navy Pier.
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