When I'm Back in Chicago, I Feel It - Part 1

Holy moly, it's been a hot minute since we all blogged together!  How about a recap of our recent trip to Chicago/northern Indiana to get things started again?  As Crofty says, it's lights out, and away we go!

At 3 Floyds Brewing to celebrate Dark Lord Day, the main reason for the trip.
There was quite a bit of weather on this particular adventure.

As you may remember, Chris and I took our first joint trip to Chicago last Labor Day.  Although we loved being in the city, eating and drinking and seeing all sorts of amazing things, our enjoyment was somewhat hampered by not feeling particularly well, which ended up with our first diagnosed bouts of COVID.  We vowed to return before too long and experience the city during a more pleasurable time.

Post-Labor Day trip napping with the girls.  COVID stinks, man.  Do not recommend.

On the first day of the 2024 trip, we stopped by 3 Floyds Brewing, a popular spot in Munster, Indiana, best known for Zombie Dust, a pale ale.  While the brewhouse was closed for renovations at that time, the retail kiosk was open (capitalism!), and after we finished our shopping, we signed up for their email list.  A few months ago, I received a notification that tickets for 3 Floyds' annual Dark Lord Day celebration were on sale, and I grabbed us a pair.  Dark Lord is the brewery's famous Imperial Stout, first released in 2004; over the last two decades, the annual bottle release has morphed from a small celebration to a huge event, attended by thousands and including a lineup of heavy metal bands, guest breweries, and food trucks.

Although Munster is a cute town in its own right, since it's only 45 minutes from Chicago, we figured this gave us a good opportunity to head back to the Windy City for a long weekend and attempt a (hopefully) non-COVID redo.  While we initially planned to stay downtown like last time, we quickly realized that prices were insanely high this particular weekend; normally, we'd just pick another time to visit, but with the festival only happening on May 17th, we were locked into a specific date.  Instead, we pivoted and searched for lodgings outside the city center, ending up in a basement Airbnb in the Wicker Park/West Town/Ukrainian Village part of town.  Although it wasn't our first pick, it was a fantastic location, and we found all sorts of cool spots to eat and drink within walking distance we wouldn't have had a chance to see otherwise.  (As to why things were so expensive on this particular weekend, here you go.) 

We took Friday off from work, starting our drive northward early (and in the middle of a significant rainstorm that would later develop into tornadoes not too far away from our area - scary stuff); we dropped the girlies off at PetSuites Hamburg for their own vacation experience, and after a quick break at a rest stop west of Cincinnati, we pushed into Indianapolis for lunch.  As we've done multiple times before, we stopped at the Smoking Goose Meatery for some of their amazing sandwiches and to pick up some goodies for later use (we've learned to bring a cooler with us for just this very reason).

Sandwich picture from our Labor Day trip -

I had the muffuletta this time, too, which is closer to the camera here, and it was once again amazing!

We hit up REI on the northeastern side of the city (to return some pants for Chris and use our anniversary sale coupon to buy me new socks - our lives are pretty exciting, we know), and then it was back on the road toward the Chi!  Although we hoped to be there around 3ish, stupid Friday afternoon traffic slowed us down, and we finally made it to our Airbnb around 5.  

After settling in and changing into nicer clothes, we hit the town for the evening!  First on the agenda was the Up Room, the rooftop bar atop the Robey Hotel.  Although a smaller hotel, the Robey is jam packed with amazing art deco features and architecture, and the views from the bar were incredible - so incredible, in fact, that part of the balcony was closed for a "private party."  It turns out this special event was a surprise marriage proposal those of us in the bar had the privilege to witness; I bet those proposal photos were amazing!

The elevator bank near the hotel's lobby - LOOK AT ALL THE AWESOME!

Picture from the interwebs - click it to make it bigger - this applies to all the web photos in this blog.

That's my "Secret Garden" on the left and Chris' "Oaxacan on Broken Glass" on the right

Yup, that's a blurry Sears Tower in the back!

Next up was a spot right around the corner, Dorian's Though the Record Shop, a swanky live music venue and bar located - you guessed it - through a record shop.  Although we were too early for the live music, we were right on time for the drinks and ambiance!

Another internet shot.  I only took pictures of drinks on this trip, apparently.

Those are tons and tons of records being used as decor/sound dampening around the top of the room.

My "Midnight Disco" and Chris' "Giardi-tini"

As we bar hopped around the greater Wicker Park area, we ran into all sorts of crazy weather.  While Chicago is known as the Windy City for a very good reason, what we experienced was bananas, even by its standards.  We faced sustained winds of 15-20 mph, with gusts up to 40, but the bigger issue was the huge dust storm that settled into the area for a few hours in the late afternoon.  The Weather Service even issued a warning about it, which is the first time they've ever done so for this area of the country!  Here's a video from the Weather Channel - we didn't take any pictures of our own - we were too busy fighting down the street to our next stop, trying to keep our eyes open long enough to see where we were going!  Funny story - as we were picking our way through the dust, we heard a lady ask her friend, "where did this come from?"  The friend replied, angrily, "IOWA!"  While that didn't seem to be true, we enjoyed it, and it's become part of our household lexicon since.

Another picture from the Googles - this was our view as well, albeit from street level

Our final destination for the evening was our dinner spot, Boeufhaus, just around the corner from our Airbnb.  Billed as a contemporary, European-inspired steakhouse of sorts, we found the food and drinks to be excellent, from our starters of escargot and turnips to our main ribeye course with a side of leek spatzle through our accompanying glasses of wine.  We left absolutely stuffed to the gills, but we were very happy to be in such a state!

A picture from the internets, as I forgot to take any - oops!

We were seated along that brick wall on the right.

Full of outstanding food and beverages, we crashed pretty hard in the Airbnb for the night (although there was a little bit of stomping from the family upstairs around 3am - they had kiddos and dogs, though, so the early wakeup wasn't unanticipated, and it didn't last long).  Per normal, I woke up on the earlier side on Saturday morning and once Chris arose as well, we grabbed showers and wandered outside to find some breakfast.

Our Airbnb host suggested Janik's Cafe for a good breakfast that wasn't too far away, so we strolled our way there, enjoying the breezy (but no longer dusty) weather and looking around the neighborhood as we meandered.  Janik's was open when we arrived, and before too long, we were seated and putting away hearty portions of chilaquiles (Chris) and a chorizo breakfast burrito (me).

Noms!  Janik's has Latin and American options for breakfast and lunch

Post-breakfast, we strolled back to the Airbnb, hopped in the car, and started our drive to Munster and 3 Floyds - it was officially time for Dark Lord Day!  As always, we were just a bit early, so we killed some time with additional caffeination at Just Be Coffee Roasters, a cute spot in a warehouse nearby.  Eventually, it was time!  We left the car at Munster's Centennial Park, crossed the road, and wandered through the maze of volunteers and ride share drop off corrals to find our beer pickup spot.  Since only Chris had the official pickup badge, I waited near the merch tent while he secured our brews.  Once they were safely in hand, we strolled the mile back to the car, deposited the bottles safely in the trunk, reconsidered our outerwear options (it was windy!  It was sunny!  It was overcast!  All in a span of about 10 minutes), then headed back to the brewery to enjoy the festival.

While I didn't mean to take this selfie, it is a good encapsulation of our weather experience.

At least it never rained!

When we bought our Dark Lord Day tickets, we figured it would be similar to beer fests we'd experienced in the past; you normally have a set number of tickets you can use to sample libations from the different breweries in attendance, and food, merch, and other items are normally available for an extra charge.  Essentially, we assumed the event would be a beer fest accompanied by a heavy metal concert.  Instead, we should have calibrated ourselves to expect more of a "this is a music festival where we're also selling beer" type of event.  It seems the only thing my GA ticket included was listening to the bands - food, merch, and even draft beer incurred an extra charge.  We processed this while sitting in a grassy area eating fried pickles (at least an hour or so before the first band took the stage), and we decided that while we were looking forward to trying the bottles Chris' fancier ticket had gained us once we returned home, we weren't super interested in just hanging out, spending more money, waiting for a metal band we didn't know (and honestly, who probably wouldn't be our cup of musical tea) to start playing.  So, we headed out, once again strolling the mile back to the car.  

Overall, our Dark Lord Day experience was a bit of a let-down, but that's mainly due to us setting our expectations improperly; after all, lots of music festivals have a cost similar to my ticket (if not far, far more), and if we had stayed and listened to bands all day long, we would have gotten our money's worth of musical entertainment.  As it was, though, we were ready to move on to our next Indiana adventure!

Looking toward the brewery from food truck row - that's Dr. Vegetable on the left,

where the fried pickles were outstanding.

In the next installment, we visit Lake Michigan and climb some sand dunes, all within sight of downtown Chicago!

Later!

Amy