After lunch, we headed off to the Bird Sanctuary and Confluence parks, spotting many a bird. By which I mean, I spotted "Hey, a bird." and Warp spotted Snowy Egrets and Orange-Winged Blackbirds. We bopped to Euclid Records, picked up a few CDs apiece.. Dylan and Zevon for Warp; Jesus Jones, Rusted Root, and Linkin Park/Jay-X for me. From there we headed into Illinois to see this and eat frozen custard. Darn you in the Midwest for having this stuff. Num. We drove along the river, listening to NPR, hopped a ferry to go to Golden Eagle, Illinois.. and hopped it back. Fine dinner at Cannoli's- grand cavatelli- and then back to watch some Venture Brothers and relax. Busy day.
Monday was sleeping in, and then off to Springfield on my insistence of more tourism. More! More! We went to the Illinois State Museum, which was smallish but nice, with a great giftshop. Folkmanis puppet of a raccoon in a trash-can was very tempting.. from there, we got dinner at The Pizza Machine, a funky place with 1963 science books, motherboard counters, blacklight-neon everywhere and the option of a 40-inch pizza. Back to Warp's nest after that, enjoyment of some HDTV Star Wars and House, my needed White Castle fix, then bed.
Tuesday Warp headed to work, but dropped me off at the West County Mall for some Chik-Fil-A, shopping, and meeting with buran. I found this game in a mall store, had to get it for the iggle. After that Buran took me to the City Museum, which is about 20% museum, 50% giant Habitrail, 10% arcade and the rest sheer drug-trip. Excellent indeed. following that a quick stop to see Buran's parents, and to get her a good sneaker- after she'd stubbed, and perhaps broken, her toe wearing sandals. See aforementioned 50% Habitrail. We got Chinese with Warp, and three games of bowling later (I won two! Go me.) headed back to his place. Return of the Jedi, House, and Harvey Birdman until it was bedtime.
Wednesday was fairly quiet, lunch with Warp at Lion's Choice and then dropped off at the airport. Got to meet Buran's boyfriend nevesis in transit for a few minutes, while polishing off an overpriced bagel. Then through security, and back to home.
Good, good vacation.
--Chiaroscuro