Mid-East meets Midwest

My husband and I were walking down the street one our way to Trader Joe's to get some of our favorite goodies when we walked past a building we have walked passed many times before.

But this time something caught my eye. I tugged on my husband's arm to get him to slow down and pointed to the main entrance. "Look!"

"Yeah Bloomingdales. We don't need anything" He replied as he started walking again.

"No. Look at the writing around the entrance. That's arabic. Look at the detail. It's all Arabesque. It's beautiful."

We stood in awe for a few minutes before the freezing weather forced us to be on our way.

On our walk home we let our imaginations run wild with all the possibilities of how that building got there. Who built it? Why here in the heart of the city? How did it become a Bloomingdales of all things?

After all our pondering and speculation I was surprised to find out the real history of the building. It was built by the local Shriners group in 1912 and was an auditorium that the circus would preform in.

I find that I smile to my self as happen past this building again and again. It seems to bring me memories of the sun and palm trees of the Middle East every time I walk by.

My little piece of the Middle East right here in Chicago

Road Trip!

The hubbs and I decided to go on a road trip mostly for the reason that while he has been to every state in the Midwest I have been to nowhere (except Chicago but not sure if where you lives counts). So in our quest to see more of America we drove up to Kalamazoo MI and then down to Indianapolis IN

Kalamazoo was smaller than I anticipated for a college town but it was beautiful.

What an amazing place to see in the Fall

And my car had no problem finding the nearest Starbucks

After a little sight seeing and driving around I found the nearest yarn shop but sadly it had closed it's doors. So then we headed south to Indianapolis

One of the main reasons we decided Indianapolis

was a MUST see was that it is home to one of three Old Spaghetti Factory Restaurants in the Midwest. This is one of my all time favorite places to eat.

You get ice cream with every meal how can you not like that?

What was hilarious was that we swung by the hotel and I was putting the restaurant in to the search on my navigation. When it came up it said "Your destination is 0.0 mi away"

"huh" I thought and started looking around me. I couldn't see a restaurant anywere so I got out of the car and asked the valet who politely pointed directly across the street from where we were standing. "You see that OPEN sign" he said.

"huh" I thought again. I handed the valet my keys and ran across the street. Best hotel spot EVAH!!

The next day we wondered around the city, which is undergoing major construction and renovations for the upcoming Super Bowl in 2012 (I think), and taking in the sites. What a lovely little city

After a bit of wandering it was time to make the 3.5 hr drive home

There were a few times I thought we had made a wrong turn somewhere

but then we came across this... How amazingly beautiful are these wind farms?

Finally after hours we came home to our last of three tolls

And even though we had another half hour of traffic ahead of us, it felt great to be home...