The Hanging Out With Owen Tour
When a teenage boy actually requests to hang out with his mother....I think it is of great import...so this weekend was Owen and Cynthia weekend. We I took off on Saturday morning. We headed west in the rain and I introduced him to the pleasures of listening to Mr. Fix-It on WGN. He looked at me like I was crazy but he got into it and we giggled as we listened, with Owen doing various imitations. We drove through the fields and chatted, listening to the Strokes, some Sparks, a bit of Ian Hunter. Owen is the best company. We made it into Galesburg and a nice old restaurant sign caught my eye.
I snapped a picture and as we turned around in the parking lot to head on, we saw the Maid-Rite on the other side of the street. We decided it was the perfect time for lunch. I went with a Cheese-Rite and iced tea, he went with a vanilla malt and a hot dog. I must say this second Maid-Rite experience topped my first. I think the cheese helped hold it together and I got it with everything....mustard, ketchup and pickle. It was delightful. The service was friendly and the whole place was immaculately clean and sparkling. Delightful.
We meandered on to downtown and hit a big three story antique mall. There were a few train things we ogled for Leo but none of it was Milwaukee Road which is his current passion so we moved on. We didn't find anything but the building was utterly glorious. It was intoxicating. Can a building be intoxicating? I tried to dig a little online just now but couldn't figure out what it was originally. It's just totally unmucked. The third floor had displays by the Galesburg Historical Society and somewhat strangely, transparent red curtains on the windows. It wasn't air conditioned and it just felt like another world. We rode down in the elevator and looked at the Saturday Nite Alive in Jesus flier and the like that were taped to the walls.
We wandered a bit more and then headed on to our destination, Burlington, Iowa. We drove over the Mississippi and started winding our way around the hills of Burlington. As someone who was raised on nice flat land....hills sometimes freak me out. We drove up on street so steep that the car wouldn't go more than a crawl. We started to turn onto Snake Alley.....considered one of the crookedest streets in the country, but stared down and we both freaked out and kept going. We decided to save it, and photographing some buildings, for the next day. We hit another antique mall and then wandered around the city a bit. Some GORGEOUS architecture. I was beside myself with excitement and Owen got into it as well. We were starting to wind down at this point so we hit our hotel. A few miles from downtown near a casino that didn't look terribly appealing. We did what we do best in hotels, laid around, watched bad tv, and ordered in. It was lovely. Day One came to a close.