In London

Saturday morning we woke up to a green Chicago River and 10s.of thousands of drunk St. Patrick's Day partiers. We weren't to the museum cafe one more time and then made out way to Chinatown for Dim Sum. After getting back to our hotel to get out luggage, we decided to go.to the airport very early. It was incredibly crowded and getting our luggage through the drunken mess was a task but we made it. 

We spent the day getting out UK ETA Visa we didn't know we needed and then we explored the airport. A few hours before our flight we were let into the United Lounge and enjoyed some food, beverage, and quiet. 

Our flight made it to London successfully and then our navigation skills got us to our hotel via The Elizabeth Line and the Central Line. 

After a short nap we were off to dinner for our first proper pint. 

Our Diamond status at Hilton gives us 2 drink tickets for each night so I took the opportunity to have a Spanish beer I had never had before in it's proper glass

Pinball In Chicago

We arrived in Chicago at around 9pm.on a Wednesday night. We were tired from our all day travel so we grabbed an Italian Beef and took advantage of our comfortable bed. 

I had a plan to play a lot more pinball than I did but Chicago wasn't cooperating. I had hoped to play at Logan Arcade, Headquarters Beercade, and Replay Lincoln Park but none of those venues were open during the day.  I feel very fortunate to have places in Minneapolis with a nice selection of machines where I can play basically whenever I want to play. 

The pinball highlight for us here in Chicago was going to The Flip Museum open house and meeting William. 

An interactive device to show how score reels work in EM machines. 

William has a small museum at the moment and had an open house every Thursday night. We reached out beforehand to make sure we could attend and he said we were welcome to come and play for free. He mentioned he wants to gather feedback for the real location opening in April hopefully. We arrived with some beer to.share and had a great time. While we were there a few other groups came in to play. I got to play a few machines I had never played before. 

i had never played Teachers Pet.  It was really fun and Donna enjoyed it too. 

I managed to roll Derby Day by ball 4 and when you roll a.machine that scores like Derby Day, the score just stops. Pretty cool!

William shared some interesting pinball history with us. 

He showed us this Ballyhoo magazine, a humor magazine going back to the 30s, the 1930s. He asked us if we could see similarities with the Ballyhoo Pinball Machine...

Yea it's clearly a copy. The Ballyhoo Pinball Machine was released in 1932 and was popular enough to get Bally Games off and running. 

He also showed us fantasy works from Borris Vallejo. 

If you are a reader of science fiction, you might recognize his work. He has 131 book covers. He also has a few pinball machines but they weren't licensed and basically ripped off. 

I saw a few images in the book that looked very close to pinball machines I recognize. 

After a bit more learning, we did more playing. 

This is his first machine. He picked it up years ago for $1200 IIRC. 

Steve Richie's (a game and pinball designer) Hyperball!  It isn't Pinball and it isn't a video game but it's also kind of both of those things. It was designed to compete with Space Invaders and other video games hitting the arcades back in the day. 

Willliam was quick to repair machines that were malfunctioning. 

I'm really glad we got the opportunity to play with and talk to William. Before we left, we gave our input on what we think a successful place would include. We had a lot of common experiences so ideas flowed. We are looking forward to coming back when his permanent location with many more machines opens. 

Chicago Street Signs

No parking when snow is over 2 inches. 

Bruce Goff

An amazing Bruce Goff exhibit is going on right now at The Art Institute. One of the best exhibits I have seen. 

Morning in Chicago

We woke up to a beautiful crisp morning and walked to coffee. We are headed to The Art Institute with our membership for members only hour and then getting "free" coffee in the members only cafe. Also I dont have my Members Only  jacket. 

Amtrak Empire Builder

We have our seats and are on our our way to Chicago!  

Another Pinball Pick Up Road Trip

 Chicago, IL

Illinois State Line

Getting Cash

I found the table we wanted to buy on Pinside.  I contacted the seller and worked out a deal.  Many of these deals are "cash on the glass" to prevent scams.  We bank with Capital One and there aren't any real banks, only tons of ATMs so we had to get $7500 at ATMs.  The first ATM we went to only gave 20s so we ended up with $2000 in 20s and realized this wasn't going to work. I decided the best bet would be to go to The Mall of America and visit the Capital One Cafe.  Their ATM gave out 100s and I was able to bump up the daily limit to $3000 so 2 trips did the trick.

So many old brands survive at The Mall of America

A Swatch shop!

Donna found one she liked.

The mall has a compact amusement park in the middle of it.

On the 2nd trip I pulled my old Swatches out a box and bought new watch bands and got free batteries for them.

Chicago!

The drive to Chicago is about 6 hours from here.  I decided to do the trip in 2 days with a drive there on Tuesday, a pinball pickup on Wednesday morning, and then a drive home Wednesday.  I also got to squeeze in dinner and drinks with friends on Tuesday night.

A trip through Wisconsin usually includes a stop at Culver's.  I even stopped at The World's Largest Culver's in Edgerton, WI on the way back.

Kevin and Vicki planned a great evening of food, drinks and fun very close to my hotel.

We spent some time at Hala Kahiki, a Tiki Bar that opened in 1964.

And then we enjoyed a late night dog, fries, and a tamale.

This is the pinball machine I picked up sitting in its former home.  

The move was pretty easy as I got help from the former owner after the cash exchange.

About 7.5 hours later we were playing it at home!

We bought an Avengers: Infinity Quest Limited Edition by Stern Pinball.  The family we bought it from purchased it new and took great care of it and added some awesome mods.  It has 3900 plays, which is pretty low, and was a fantastic deal.  Now I will start trouble shooting 1 of the known issues with this machine, but it's a small issue that can easily be worked around but it's fun getting machines playing exactly how they should play.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Successful Eye Surgery, check it out!

Road Tripping Through Wisconsin

Minneapolis, MN

Donna and her black liquorish ice cream at a Wisconsin Cheese Shop (it was GOOOOOOD!)

Chicago to Minneapolis via Wisconsin

Yesterday we headed out of Chicago on our way to camping in Wisconsin on the way Minneapolis.  We set up two 3-4 hour drives so we were able to stop and see things.  It was a great drive and we saw just how pretty Wisconsin is.  

Our first stop was at the Wisconsin border to pick up an official State Highway Map and a Wisconsin State Parks Guide.

This is Bucky Badger, the official mascot of the University of Wisconsin.  

Me and Bucky!

The State had 85 Bucky Badgers made and then had different artists decorate them and placed them around the state.  You can watch a documentary about it here.

Rock County!

Greetings From...Spoiler!  Wisconsin!
(My glasses were preventing me from really seeing my phone for this selfie)

We arrived at Mill Bluff State Park early in the afternoon and had our happy hour after we set up.  It's not an out of the way state park, but it was pretty empty for a Thursday during the summer during a holiday week.

Our Set Up

We made Francis stand on this stump for a photo.

After relaxing for a bit we decided to check out some of the bluffs.

There was a really nice lookout that you could hike to,

with a nice view of the bluffs,

After a great night's sleep, we got up and made coffee and then packed and hit the road.

The Coffee Shot!

After packing up and birding for a bit we headed out.  We had a 3ish hour drive to our Airbnb and we can't check in until 4pm so we are taking our time.  Our first stop was unexpected.  We saw a sign on the side of the road that said something like, "Cranberry Shop and Museum and Cranberry Ice Cream".  We decided to swing by after confirming it was open.  

They were out of Ice Cream so we looked at the Cranberry Wines.

They touted their cranberry bogs as being habitat.

After buying some cranberry wine we hit the road again.  Our next stop was a Wisconsin Brewery.  Donna found Northwoods Brewpub which had BBQ sandwiches.

I saw the pinball machine and had to play it.  It was set on very easy and the right slingshot was broken so it played incredibly easy.  I played 3 balls and then left games on the machine because I could have played all day.

I had to get the fried cheese curds.  They were delicious!

I also got a brisket sandwich with tots.  I finished my sandwich for dinner when we got to Minneapolis.

Our last stop was a cheese shop in Wisconsin, Cady Cheese Store.  We saw another roadside sign that advertised it so we stopped.  It was a great stop!

I stuck my through a thing today too!

All different aged cheddars.  We bought a 15 year.  It's fantastic!

I feel like they were trying to make cheeses in the shapes of the states but failed.  I might be wrong.

We arrived at our Airbnb at 4:15 after diverting to drive by Donna's Childhood home.  She lived here for about a year in the late 70s.  Our Airbnb is great!  It is in a cool area with a coffee shop with pinball about a block away.  We are all settled now and ready to enjoy Minnesota!

This cheese is older than Francis!

We tried one of the wines and it's good in our opinion (we aren't wine drinkers so our opinion doesn't matter much).

We put 327 miles on our Wisconsin Highways Map

We ended up with 1348 Miles in Illinois. 

And now we are sitting at 887 Counties.

That's it for today.  If you didn't read Wisconsin Brought the Brat check it out.  We had beer and Pinball in Wisconsin as well as a brat.