Annie and Cindy’s Day Out!
Is there anything better than a day with a loose schedule to just enjoy what you find and visit with a friend? Yesterday, Annie Jansen and I took to East Central Illinois in search of stops for my upcoming book Unique Eats & Eateries of Illinois that I am writing with Carrie Steinweg. I met up with Annie at her house in Sigel at ten. Running late after being behind some S-L-O-W trucks and due to my directional lack. She had the car running and ready to go, we were in her neck of the woods.
Catching Up
My husband asked me what we talked about when I got home. The better question, is what didn’t we talk about? The last few times we have connected there has been something keeping us from having a full conversation, so there was a lot of catching up to do!
Courthouses and Murals!
On our drive we went through three counties and witnessed three beautiful courthouses. I would usually ask to stop and tour. I find a lot of beauty and history in the heart of county government buildings. There is usually a rotunda with an amazing ceiling, a beautiful view and architectural wonders in buildings-built years ago.
Murals are my bag, they tell the story, or share the art of the region, if I can I stop on a drive by, if not, I ask for a stop! We saw this gem in Robinson, one of my favorite stops along the way. The town was filled with lots of activity!
Dining Fun
Our first stop was Moonshine a general store with one a cheeseburger in the top 25 in Illinois, where Lisa served us a great bacon cheeseburger, their best seller. Moonshine is literally in the middle of nowhere!
Next stop was the Heath museum. They sell candy and have ice cream besides cool history. If you are looking for Valentine’s Day goodies, highly recommended.
Our final dining stop was the wonderful Maxwell House Cafe in Flat Rock. Hilary, Ron, and Vanessa all posed or us after our interview. We had pie, stirfry and their wonderful frenchfries.
Working on this book has been great fun. What I love is the people I am meeting along the way, and the neat places we are finding and encouraging others to go there. Like Annie took her sister to Shelly’s Burger Station, in Vandalia. That was once of our fun stops along this dining road trip!
What was your last day out? What was your favorite thing? Mine is that we talk so much we pass roads, we laugh, turn around and ooh and ah over sites we would never imagine right here just a couple hours away.
The best was this covered bridge over the Embarrass River. As they say priceless!
