Chicago - South Bend

PJ and I had a fun, funny, memorable (if somewhat short) trip to Chicago and South Bend (on July 5-9).  Prompted by an invitation from Voe and Karen Zintak to the wedding of their son (John) in Chicago.

Voe & Karen Zintak family, right after wedding ceremony.

Flew into Midway, then started the trip with a visit with John, Ping and children (Patrick and Serena) - I hadn't seen their home before, very nice area (Woodbridge).  It was fun to catch up, and they were gracious enough to treat us to a fine dinner at a Korean place they'd discovered (near Patrick's school).  So that was nice.

Sampling of the fine bikes that (with owners) provided some real character to our chain-hotel experience.

Then over to Voe's place - beautiful backyard - beers, food, conversation, hospitality ++.

Then over to our hotel shortly before 1a.  At check-in learned that the hotel had been mostly reserved for a local motorcycle club - the Ruff Ryders - plenty of interesting bikes and bikers in evidence throughout our stay.  (Some must have been night owls based on all-night hallway shenanigans.)

Wandering around St. Mary's Lake.

Wedding was Saturday afternoon; beautiful outdoor ceremony followed by reception at Janosik Banquet in Hickory Hills.  First-gen Polish bride, which was neat.  Much enjoyed entire event, very nice to catch up with Pat and Nancy (and their son David), Rita, Jan, etc.

Where we officially got started  on May 24, 1980.

We had decided to extend the trip by a couple days for a quick visit to South Bend, and we were glad that we did.  Our last visit, described here, was back in 2006; campus continues to change, particularly on the south end.  There is something entirely new since 2011 - "Eddy Commons" - we stayed at a Fairfield Inn that is part of this development.  Nice shopping and restaurants - you guessed it, "there wasn't anything like this when we were in school."  A big improvement.

Attempt at panoramic view inside Sacred Heart Church Basilica.

Weather very hot and humid.  Lots of walking, per our usual style.  A great time of year to be on campus - pretty much dead - without the jumpiness of a football weekend, it was possible to dredge up something of the "old days" feeling (a little bit, but nice). Wonderful dinner (and lunch subsequent day) at Cafe Navarre in downtown S. Bend.   Met Joe and Jackie Gales for a drink on Monday night - just delightful to have a chance to visit with them.

Wrapped up things on Tuesday, and back to Phoenix - a fun time with my excellent traveling companion.

Thanksgiving images (random)

Much enjoyed our Thanksgiving. Typical awesome food primarily courtesy of PJ with big assist from Chris; Rick & Laura & David stopped by for the evening ('twas fun); long weekend of leftovers, football games, visiting; etc.

Top photo: PJ is pretty much an expert at making the "buns" per recipe handed down I suppose from Grandma Bormann (and beyond) to Helen Stella.

Middle photo: package from Rita Zintak: she figured out long ago that AZ desert region lacks traditional fall color (though there are some changes, per here) , and always sends a package of leaves. These end up as part of Thanksgiving centerpiece. Nice! (She takes liberties with our address - Easter missives are addressed to the "Gales Hutch", for example - but this "Turkey Farm" concept was a new one.)

Bottom photo: Friday morning treat (after PJ was long gone to work): apple dumpling, coffee, newspaper (well, the AZ Republic). (Looking at the photo, it strikes me that it's both comfortable and slightly disconcerting to think that that I've been eating off the same stoneware with the same utensils for 30+ years now.)

Rita Z. (end of 2010 birthday cycle)

Here we are having reached August 11, which means we have just completed this year's cycle of birthdays. This year's finale included birthday dinners for Patrick on 8/8 (belated due to PJ's recent Chicago trip) and Paul Jr. on 8/10.



There are a number of folks that consistently contribute to making the birthdays big events, but I need to call out Rita Zintak and Jan Zintak. These two NEVER miss a birthday for any of the seven of us - going on 30 years now. I call that impressive, and it is much appreciated. Literally hundreds of birthday cards over the years.

In 2010, a very unusual occurrence on Patricia's birthday: Aunt Rita was a day late. It happened that Patricia was at work on the day that Rita called to wish her a happy birthday. Rita's excellent solution: just sing into the answering machine. We refuse to delete the message, and get a kick out of it every time we go through our messages.

Play the video to understand why this is so great (but turn up the volume, the audio track is unfortunately very low.) At some point we need to find out if Rita can explain for us the source of the, let's call it "unusual," version of the "happy birthday" song that the O'Donnell clan passed along.

Photo was taken in June 1994, during Rita and Jan's visit to Arizona. (Back when you could meet or see off folks at the airport gate.)

Anyway: I felt I needed to record this before it was lost due to phone failure, or whatever.