A whale of a trip

Karen (Drew's girlfriend) and I are both from the New York area, and so we both grew up with pretty much one name in the ice cream business: Carvel. Around here, people know Carvel pretty much exclusively as Those Cakes You Can Get at Jewel. Recently, I discovered that there was a single Carvel in Illinois - just one! Of course, one's opening soon in Wilmette, supposedly, and of course that's way, way closer than the actual one - which is out in the middle of exurban nowhere, Geneva, Illinois. Alma, Drew, Karen and I headed out there today, and it took a long, long time. To give you an idea of how far this was (40+ miles): we had to get onto I-90 W, take that out to near O'Hare and get onto 294 S, take that to 290 W for about 8 seconds, then get off onto North Avenue... and then take that west for something like another 30 minutes. It was kind of ridiculous. To put it in another perspective, we drove through three counties - Cook, DuPage, and finally Kane - to get to Geneva, and even crossed the Fox River in St. Charles. This was way the crap out there.

To make it worth the trip, I had both the My Mom Got This Every Single Time We Went to Carvel Special (vanilla soft serve with chocolate sprinkles) and a Flying Saucer. Drew and Karen joked (I think) about opening up their own franchise. Fudgie the Whale was in the house, but, sadly, Cookie Puss did not put in an appearance.

On the way back, we stopped at a mini golf course in West Chicago, because if you're going to drive 80 miles round trip for freaking ice cream, you might as well play some mini golf and make it worth the trip. Long story short: Drew won when I bogeyed the last two holes. Drew had two holes-in-one and Alma had one. The par was ridiculously low. Details can be found on the mini golf page, because I know you're all itching to read them.

We finished the "Hey, This Turned into a Double Date!" day with a nice dinner at Blind Faith. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the teriyaki grilled tofu, and I found - to my amazement - that the Blind Faith salsa is remarkably similar to the Toro Loco salsa (if perhaps a bit spicier). I subsequently found out that Blind Faith sells not only their salsa but their salad dressings - including their vinaigrette, which I have previously declared one of my favorites - by the half pint. I got a half pint of each after picking my jaw up off the floor. I'm pretty sure the waitress thinks I'm a crazy man.

All in all, an amazingly packed weekend (though technically it contained three days, and if Friday had been Saturday then today probably would not have happened). I haven't had a weekend that packed that didn't have a connection to something related to school (quiz bowl, WNUR) since... I don't even know. Probably some family vacation back during high school. I think I need to have more fun more often.