Tag Archives: road trip

Our 2022 Road Trip #26: Country Time with Coolidge

April 23, 2023 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Calvin Coolidge's tombstone has two tiny flags and some pink flowers standing in front of it; evergreen bushes behind it.

Part 25 also led off with a tombstone, but this one is real.

Longtime MCC readers may recall one of the recurring motifs in our past vacations was the final resting places of Presidents of the United States of America. In fact, one trip was dedicated specifically to the task of spotting nine such gentleman in a row. They’re not all winners, but they went down in American history as official Presidents, for better or worse, so they count. Prior to 2022 we’d visited the gravesites of 23 U.S. Presidents in all. When last we left off, in 2021 we visited Herbert Hoover’s final resting place in Iowa and compiled a list of all the Presidential gravesites we’d seen up to that point. As it happens, Vermont has one that we had to visit before we headed home.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 9 of 10: Indiana Caverns on $0.00 a Day

April 17, 2023 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A wood-carved saber-toothed tiger situated on the front porch of the Indiana Caverns gift shop.

The wood-carved saber-toothed tiger welcomes you!

Our Friday in and around Corydon was fun, but not every stop on our to-do list worked out as hoped. Some attractions are simply more doable in the morning than in the afternoon. The longer the day goes on, the longer their guest list grows and the longer you might have to wait your turn. You can either be patient and invest the extra time needed, or bow out gracefully and don’t grouse about the minutes you’ve blown in vain, especially when that’s technically your own fault.

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Our C2E2 2023 Epilogue: Chicago!

April 9, 2023 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Piles and piles of baked goods on a restaurant counter behind glass.

A plethora of pretty pastries yearning to be free at Goddess and the Baker.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…and speaking of delight, it was great to be back in the Windy City once more after Fan Expo Chicago last July. That show was up in Rosemont and didn’t lend itself to a lot of new extracurricular activities away from the exhibit hall. For our C2E2 experience we arranged our accommodations with an eye toward offsite exploration….partly because the hotels near McCormick Place were either sold out or priced beyond what we felt like paying this time. Up in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, we found a suitable compromise and a variety of dining options surrounding us on all sides.

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Our 2022 Road Trip #25: 10 Ben & Jerry’s Flavors That Deserved to Die (And 5 That Didn’t)

March 27, 2023 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments
Vermonty Python ice cream tombstone

Exempt from competition because it has my favorite epitaph, it’s Vermonty Python: “Coffee Liqueur Ice Cream with a Chocolate Cookie Crumb Swirl & Fudge Cows”. I expected Spam and elderberries.

We had a grand old time at the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream factory tour, but the fun didn’t end at their threshold or at closing time. On the way to the parking lot is a special outdoor tribute we’ve never seen any other company attempt: a mock graveyard in which every tombstone represents a discontinued product. When was the last time you visited a McDonald’s with its own chapel where you can light a candle for the Cheddar Melt or the McLean Deluxe?

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Our 2022 Road Trip #24: Ben & Jerry’s Very Merry Dairy

March 26, 2023 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Ben & Jerry's logo painted big and brightly on an indoor wall.

The men, the myth, the legends, the logo.

As storied Vermont institutions go, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is one of the most beloved and possibly the Vermont-iest of them all. Their factory in Waterbury offers free tours and ranked high on our to-do list the moment we’d chosen Vermont as this year’s destination. Thanks to the pandemic, it very nearly didn’t happen for us.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 8 of 10: The Battle Cabin in the Woods

March 25, 2023 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A log cabin in the woods with some (unseen) history to it.

No, this isn’t one of the 600 different Midwest historical sites with ties to Abraham Lincoln.

In our road trips of recent vintage we’ve been adding American battlefields to our itineraries on behalf of Anne the history aficionado. Longtime MCC readers may or may not recall our previous stops at the former war zones of Antietam, Gettysburg, Saratoga Springs, Chickamauga, Tippecanoe, and Stones River. Some battlefields are larger and more important than others, but each one has support from dedicated historians keeping their memories and lessons alive.

As it happens, our own state of Indiana had exactly one (1) Civil War battle fought within our boundaries. As a Hoosier might expect, of course the aggressors came up from Kentucky.

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Our 2022 Road Trip #23: Moseying Around Montpelier

March 24, 2023 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Downtown Montpelier as seen from the highway bridge coming into town. An above-average number of steeples poke upward.

We’d had plans to get a better view of Montpelier, but that didn’t work out.

We’re not high-end shoppers who get caught anywhere near boutiques, jewelers, perfumeries, fashion trendsetters, or home decor artisans unless they happen to be next door to the retailers we’d rather visit. And by “we” I especially mean “I”. Anne’s collecting habits are modest bordering on spartan, whereas I’m the one on the lookout for brick-and-mortar purveyors who cater to my hobbies and pop culture interests. Fortunately Montpelier had just the district for us.

Apropos of Vermont, that entire paragraph is recycled from the downtown Burlington chapter from the day before. The sentiments nonetheless apply here. If it ain’t broke, and so on.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 7 of 10: William Henry Harrison Slept Here

March 21, 2023 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A two-story log cabin that used to be various businesses but is now an old-timey museum.

I’ve run across a few websites that think the building once known as Branham Tavern is still a working tavern to this day. Whoops!

I’ve never thought of President William Henry Harrison as one of this blog’s patron saints, but in prepping this entry, it dawned on me that we’ve name-checked him enough times in our travels to make our own clipfest. We’ve run across representations and mementos from his life in several attractions to date:

Admittedly we blew our chance to collect a complete set when we visited Vincennes in 2020 and failed to stop by Grouseland, his old mansion. As I recall it was closed at the time of our visit for renovation and/or pandemic. Maybe we’ll rectify that omission next time we’re in the area. In the meantime, our visit to Corydon added another of his previous residences to our veritable Ninth President Collectors’ Checklist, not that we consciously keep one.

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Our 2022 Road Trip #22: Little State, Big State House

January 28, 2023 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
The Vermont State House on a gray day, gold-leaf dome shining and citizens hanging around.

The old leaf dome of the Vermont State House shines through a gray post-rainy late morning.

In our early traveling years we didn’t make a point of visiting every state capital or capitol building along our route because, well, we hadn’t really considered collecting them like trading stamps or Beanie Babies. In later years we’ve regretted bypassing a few that were within reach (e.g., Richmond, Frankfort, Jackson) and/or those capitals we did visit but skipped their capitols (Little Rock, Topeka). In more recent times we’ve upgraded their priority level and included them where so inclined and doable. Montpelier, VT, is America’s smallest state capital, but it was easy to reach from our planned path, and an engaging addition at that.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 6 of 10: Cozy Corydon Cuisine

January 10, 2023 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Open-faced meatloaf sandwich on a wooden table in noonday sunlight. See caption.

An open-faced meat loaf sandwich made from ground beef and duck, wrapped in bacon, served on sourdough, doused in bourbon brown gravy, and topped with white American cheese, greens, and fried leeks a la Skyrim.

Of course there’s a chapter for the good foods we found. The gallery is a quickie that could’ve been squeezed into one of the other chapters, but then that chapter would’ve been too long, you wouldn’t have clicked on it, and you’d have missed more cute pics of my wife who’s perfectly happy being 52 now.

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