Barnwood (Gurnee)
1700 Nations DriveOur first evening at Great Wolf Lodge in Gurnee, IL was great. The kids had a blast playing in the pools on going on the slides. Hell, they even got me to go down the slides a couple of times with them.
We were in the area for a figure skating competition at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex just up the road from Thursday to Saturday. We had gotten to Great Wolf on Wednesday night because L had 7 AM practice in Pleasant Prairie and there was no way we were driving that early Wednesday AM to get her there.
We let the kids run around for a couple of hours while J and I just kind of hung out. It was kind of nice. This was the first time we didn’t really have to watch their every move. They’re old enough and tall enough that they can do things on their own. We’d just walk around occasionally to find them to make sure they weren’t getting in to trouble.
We headed back to the room around 6:00. J and I had discussed dinner options while we were sitting at the pool. Great Wolf has a couple of dinner options so that was in the discussion. We also looked at a few nearby Gurnee restaurants.
Eventually we decided the difference in price was only going to be about $10-$15 and the convenience of just staying at the lodge won out.
We chose to have dinner at Barnwood. This is Great Wolf Lodge’s kind of upscale dinner restaurant. It’s located in the main lobby right near the check-in desk. The restaurant doesn’t open until 5:00 so it’s a dinner only place. The space kind of melds into the surroundings as there really isn’t much of a wall seperating it from the lobby. It kind of has the feel of a hotel bar with some lodge like aesthetics.
Read more…Great Wolf Lodge (Gurnee)
1700 Nations DriveYou thought after all these recent trips I might get back to writing blogs about Southwest Michigan, didn’t you?
My bad.
We’re on the road again. This time it’s personal.
We headed to the Illinois/Wisconsin border for a figure skating competition in Pleasant Prairie. It’s one of our big trips that have become an every year thing. The Southport Summer Classic at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex is one of our favorite competitions.
This year B got to come along and compete too.
L’s events were Thursday, Friday and Saturday while B’s events were only on Saturday. A lot of his friends didn’t make this trip so he didn’t really have anyone to hang out with at the rink. I figured that was going to be the case and several months ago, I booked a room at Great Wolf Lodge. I figured we could all enjoy the water park Wednesday night then he and I could hang out at the water park after L competed on Thursday.
The Great Wolf Lodge in Illinois is in Gurnee. The indoor water park/hotel is on Nations Drive just around the corner from the I-94 interchange with Grand Avenue and just down the street from Six Flags Great America. As wild as this sounds, J and I have actually been to this resort before. It was built as a Key Lime Cove in 2007 and operated as such until 2017. J and I joined my brother and his family along with my parents for a Christmas time trip in 2011 just a little over a month before L was born.
Read more…Sam Jones BBQ (Raleigh)
502 W. Lenoir StreetWe were not going to leave North Caroline without getting some BBQ.
We were on a very quick trip to North Carolina for a job assignment. We literally drove 14 hours, worked for about three, then got back in the car to drive another 14.
We were leaving Wilmington around 1:30. My colleague had a Zoom call that he had to get on from 2:00-3:00 while we were driving. We both wanted some of that Eastern Carolina BBQ before we left but we didn’t have enough time in Wilmington and really, nothing jumped out to me as a place we had to eat before we left.
My plan was to head back to Raleigh.
I found Clyde Cooper’s BBQ which had great reviews and has been in downtown Raleigh for decades….but when we got to the door about an hour before closing, there was a sign that they were already closed for the day because they ran out of food.
We needed a back up so I quickly Googled what was around us. There was another BBQ joint that amazing reviews that was only a couple of blocks away so we got in the car and headed over there.
Sam Jones BBQ in Raleigh is one of two locations of this BBQ whose story goes back decades to Skylight Inn BBQ in Ayden, NC south of Greenville. Sam Jones’ grandfather, Pete Jones ran that place and Sam is now part of the family group that runs that historic BBQ joint. In 2015, Sam and a longtime Skylight employee partnered to open Sam Jones BBQ. There are now locations of that restaurant in Raleigh and Greenville.
The Raleigh location of Sam Jones BBQ is on the corner of West Lenoir Street and South West Street near downtown Raleigh. This building actually used to be a garage/repair shop named Dusty’s. It’s kind of crazy if you go back and look at the Google street view images from before 2019 to see what it was and what they’ve turned it in to now.
Read more…Waffle House (Market Street, Wilmington)
5041 Market StreetWe ended up making the entire 14 hour trip to Wilmington, NC in one day. It was a late night but my colleague and I pulled in to town around 12:30 AM.
We didn’t book a hotel until we figured we were going to make it all the way. The plan was, if we got too tired, we’d pull off somewhere and finish the drive in the morning.
We had a 10:30 AM appointment so we really didn’t want to be too far away from Wilmington. I was still wide awake once we hit North Carolina so we just finished the drive.
While I was driving, my colleague made hotel reservations. He decided to play nice with the company and went with something cheap.
He regretted that decision once we got checked in.
We stayed at the Baymont Inn & Suites on Market Street kind of in the center of Wilmington. Honestly, the rooms weren’t that bad but it did give off sketchy vibes when we pulled up. I was fine with his choice. He was looking forward to morning and getting out of there.
When we got up the next morning, I got a text saying the hotel breakfast room looked sketchy and we should go somewhere else.
The day before, I joked the whole way down we needed to stop at a Waffle House. It’s kind of a tradition for me when I travel south for work. I love the place but last time I took him to one…which was our second visit to one in Miami Gardens, he just got a Coke, so I was a little surprised when he said we should check out of the hotel and hit Waffle House for breakfast.
Lucky for us, there was one right down the street.
There are several Waffle House locations in the Wilmington area but the one we were closest to was the location on Market Street west if New Center Drive. Like most Waffle House locations, this one is just a small, standalone box with the traditional red awning and yellow roof line. For some reason, this location has a random palm tree right in front of the square letter logo sign.
Bojangles (Princeton)
701 Oakvale RoadYou thought we were going to get back to Southwest Michigan restaurants after that string of Northern Michigan blogs, didn’t you?
I was home for about a day and a half then it was back on the road. I had to drive to North Carolina for work. A colleague and I literally drove 14 hours, worked for about 3 hours in Wilmington, NC then turned around and drove 14 hours back to Michigan. We had too much gear and it was too last second to book a flight so the only way we were going to do the job was to drive it. So we did.
We left at a out 7:00 AM on Tuesday morning. We had to stop in Ann Arbor and finish a job my colleague had already started. We completed that then got back on the road around 11:30 to make the rest of the drive.
We did pretty good not stopping very often for bathroom breaks. Last time he and I went on a trip it felt like we stopped every hour. We were every two or three this time.
Around 6:00, we had just gotten out of the mountains in West Virginia and were heading in to Virginia around 6:00. I noticed a billboard for a Bojangles on the side of the road. My colleague asked if I wanted to stop. I’ve never been to a Bojangles so of course the answer was yes.
We stopped at the Bojangles in Princeton, West Virginia. It’s on Oakvale Boulevard right off of WV460/Big Laurel Highway. The fast food chicken shop isn’t too far off I-77 but I still needed to quickly put it in my GPS to find the right turn once I got off the highway.
Read more…The Filling Station Microbrewery
642 Railroad PlaceThe best thing about figure skating competitions isn’t always the skating. Yes, I love watching my kids compete and seeing their successes but a lot of memories that will stick with them forever aren’t made on the ice. They’re made with friends off the ice.
The Traverse City Cherry Classic is a pretty short competition. It’s only Friday, Saturday, Sunday instead of the usual Thursday-Sunday that is common at a lot of the competitions.
We got to town Thursday evening and both kids skated on both Friday and Saturday. We realized right away that a lof of the kids’ friends also came to this competition. Some were staying in the hotel next door to ours and they ended up playing in the lake and making those memories that will last forever.
Before that happened, we met some of the other families for dinner. Our original plan had been to go out to Hoplot but a couple of the families didn’t want to make the 30 minute drive after being at the rink all day.
So we came up with another idea.
The decision was made to hang out at The Filling Station Microbrewery instead.
The Filling Station Microbrewery is on Railroad Place near Station Street in an old railroad depot that dates back to the 1920’s. The depot only operated for about 40 years closing in 1966. It then became home to a number of businesses with The Filling Station eventually opening up in 2012.
J & S Hamburg South Airport
1083 W South Airport RoadFrom Mackinaw City to Traverse City. I didn’t even get a chance to sleep in my own bed.
The kids had a figure skating competition at the Centre Ice Arena in Traverse City. It’s one of our favorite competitions of the year because we also treat it like a vacation. This year, we stayed at the Sugar Beach Resort and hung out with friends when we had downtown.
There are long breaks in figure skating competitions. It’s not unusual to get to the rink at 7 AM for practice, have one event at 9 AM and the next event at 6 PM. That was kind of how our weekend played out.
Both of L’s events were actually pretty early on Friday but B had a evening event. When L was done, we left the rink for a while, got lunch, swam at the hotel, then went back for B’s event.
Getting our kids to eat lunch has gotten really difficult. They won’t eat anything and complain about every restaurant. J and I get tired of fighting and wasting money but we don’t want to eat Chick-Fil-A and Tropical Smoothie for every meal when we’re at these competitions.
The one thing the kids will always eat with very little complaint is breakfast…so that’s what I’ve started looking for when we go to lunch.
I found J & S Hamburg South Airport not too far from the rink and they do all day breakfast.
The airport themed diner is near the Cherry Capitol Airport on West South Airport Road near Garfield Avenue. The small restaurant is part of the larger Colonial Square Shopping Mall. It takes up the two storefronts on the west end of the building. We had a hard time turning in to the shopping center from South Airport Road so I went to the next business to turn back around and make a right hand turn but we noticed there was a pretty worn out path between the two businesses so we were likely not the only ones that gave up on trying to make a left hand turn and just parked at the pet food store next door.
Scalawags Whitefish Chips
226 E. Central AvenueMy last day of work in Mackinaw City was supposed to be one where I could get off the Island early and get on the road. Of course, that didn’t happen.
We were just about to hit the 5:00 ferry back to Mackinaw City when we got a call from our boss. We needed to stick around until probably the 6:30 and pick up an extra assignment. It was a bummer but we did what we needed to do then got on the 6:30 ferry back to the city.
My co-worker typically stays Thursday night in Mackinaw City then heads home Friday morning. I’m more of a let’s get out of here type of guy so I come Monday night and leave Thursday night.
I was actually heading over to Traverse City from Mackinaw City. The kids had a figure skating competition Friday and Saturday and it made no sense for me to go home. J drove the kids up Thursday afternoon and I met them there.
I had already checked out of my hotel so it was just grabbing my car and getting on the road.
But I needed something to eat first.
I didn’t want “fast food” but I wanted something quick.
I picked Scalawags Whitefish & Chips in downtown Mackinaw City. The restaurant is on Central Avenue near Henry Street..but it’s a little hard to spot at first. That’s because it’s actually behind the Kilwin’s. If you walk on either side of Kilwin’s, you’ll come to a little courtyard with some tables and a few storefronts. This is where Scalawags is located.
El Zarape
103 S. Nicolet StreetI know it’s not my money when I’m on Mackinac Island for work but it still kind of feels wasteful to eat dinner on the Island before heading back to my hotel in the City. There’s nothing that really jumps out as someplace I have to try and it all just seems a little expensive for a meal that’s not always filling.
My third night on this trip, I headed back on the 6:00 ferry and got back to my hotel around 6:45. It was still pretty early and there was a taco place I saw while driving around when I got to town Monday night. I like tacos…like, a lot…so Wednesday night was going to be taco night.
The new taco place is El Zarape. It’s on Nicolet Street south of Central Avenue near downtown Mackinaw City. This new Mexican joint took over the building that had been built for and occupied by a Burger King. The restaurant is pretty new. It wasn’t there when I was in Mackinaw City this time last year. Just going back through their Facebook photos it looks like it opened in October of 2023. There’s not much signage on the building itself, but there is a large sign near the road so you know you’re at the right place.
Bob’s Place
7515 US-31I told you in my last blog post that my plan was to drive to Mackinaw City (via Petoskey) and just find a place to eat along the way. When I got to Petoskey, I kind of panicked though. I assumed I’d find some little hole in the wall or gas station with food along the way but that didn’t happen.
I should have just kept going.
I was bout a half hour from Mackinaw City when I drove through the small town of Alanson. There were actually three places I passed between Alanson and Mackinaw City that I thought, “damn. I wish I would have waited.”
I already had my pizza from Corktown Pizza & Pub in Petoskey so I couldn’t justify stopping. That didn’t stop me from going back the next night after my work on Mackinac Island finished for the day.
My travels led me back to Bob’s Place in Alanson. The restaurant is on US-31 near East Street in the small Emmet County village. The thing that caught my attention was the somewhat retro sign on the exterior of the building that initially led me to believe this place was more of a family diner kind of restaurant than a pub.
SW Michigan Dining 