Swedish Dazed!

What’s up everyone?

Every year the sleep little town of Geneva Illinois is transformed into a Swedish lovers paradise as they celebrate their midsummer festival, Swedish Days.

Geneva is a small village located in the western suburbs of Chicago.  With a population around 22,000 people.  The residents take pride in their small town feel.  The area was first settled in the 1830’s.  It was eventually incorporated into a village in 1867.  During this time it went through several names before they settled on Geneva.  Many believe it was named after Geneva, New York.  But I can neither confirm or deny this claim.   Its location on the shores of the Fox River which made it an important hub for manufacturing and shipping.

Geneva has several tourist draws.  Not too far from the village lies the Fabyan Windmill.  It is an authentic, fully functional, five story Dutch style windmill built in the 1850’s.  We were not able to make it to see the windmill, maybe next time.  We were able to walk around parts of Geneva’s famed Fox River Bike Trail.  The parts that we were able to walk was beautiful.  Plenty of open spaces with benches and picnic tables, a children playground and clean rest areas.  If biking and walking not really your thing you can also grab a fishing pole and drop in a lure.  Just don’t fish off the bridges, its highly frowned upon.  Geneva is also host a museum, shops, restaurants, and historical architecture.  

The villages biggest tourist draw is of course, Swedish Days.  In the latter parts of 1800’s, Geneva experience a large influx of Swedish immigrants.  It was such a huge rush that over half the population were of Swedish descent by 1900.  So Swedish pride runs rampant there.

The festival is a five day event, each day has it own unique events as well as the typical street fair events.  Booths, carnival rides and street food was all on tap.  We decide to get a group together and head up on Saturday morning.  Since we were all coming from different parts of the city we decided to meet up at the local Starbucks.  One of our good friends actually grew up in Geneva, so he gave us a brief tour of the village.  He told us all about how it was growing up there and what had change since he moved away.  We found it all very fascinating.  We spent most of our time exploring the little shops and booths.  I had to try really hard to keep Erin from touching things.  She has a tendency to touch everything or, I mean, she likes to look with her hands and not here eyes.  One day she’s going to touch the wrong thing and break it.

After all the excitement of the festival we decide to stop and get something to eat.  We happened upon a local resident that was more then happy to suggest some local favorites.  We ended up at Local Burger, an artesian burger joint.  We searched the menu feverishly, trying to decide what to have. Burgers, wraps, mac and cheese, it all sounded really good.  We finally decided on what to have and placed our orders.  They came out grilled to perfection and served on a pretzel bun. It was very good and filling.  If you are in the area make sure that you stop in, I doubt you will be disappointed.

Lately we have been experiencing some rainy weather.  It was great to finally be able to get out and do something outside for a change.  We all had an exciting time getting out to Geneva and experiencing Swedish Days.  Hopefully we will be able to make it up there again and see what else Geneva has to offer.

Get out and experience your local festivals.  As always, Thanks for stopping by.  Until next time.

Josh

Memorial Weekend Hijinx

What’s up everyone?

I have probably mentioned this a few times throughout my posts, so I’ll be repeating myself I’m sure.  For as long as I can remember, my family has been riding dirt bikes and atvs.  I literally mean for as long I can remember.  There is a picture of either my brother or myself as a baby sitting on an old Honda three-wheeler.  I wish that I had easy access to it so that I could share it with you.  Its adorable.

For us it started as male bonding time.  My father, brother, myself and some close friends would gather our gear and head out for a days ride.  We would usually stop at the local gas station to get some fuel and some snacks for the day.  Ah….Doritos and Chips Ahoy.  To be honest, there is no better snacks then that for getting down and dirty in the Utah’s backcountry.  As we grew older our manly bonding time turned into quality family time.

That is one of the things that I miss the most since we moved out to the Chicago area.  Maybe its my ignorance or lack of knowledge of the area, but it seems to me that the people here do not participate in outdoor recreation like we do out West.  I feel like you could be driving around any street in Utah and see at least one person with an atvs, utvs, dirt bikes, snowmobile, jet ski or a boat.  But driving around here, I may have seen a handful of boats and jet ski.  Very rarely do you see a atv.  Something that is a very foreign to me.

Lucky for us, when we made our tip back home we had the opportunity to head back out into Utah’s backcountry.  My family has some property in Fillmore, Utah.  A small little town around the middle of the state.  In fact it was the capital for a time before Salt Lake took over the title.  Not too long after we had landed, we gathered our gear and hit the road.  Two hours later we were there being greeted by smiling faces and a wonderfully prepared meal.

The following day our adventure began.  After a quick breakfast, we packed our coolers and decide on where we were headed.  With our path decided we headed out into the wilderness.  We passed through a few small towns before making our way up the canyon.  To me nothing beats a drive on a dirt road up in the mountains.  The smells of the forest brought in by the slight breeze blowing about you.  Very nice.  We eventually made our way to the top of the trail and was met with an obstacle.  We had been told by fellow adventurers, that there was large snow drifts on the higher roads.  We found us a nice place to pull over to discuss our options.  Some of us went to investigate the road, while the rest stayed behind to mess around.

After a few minutes our group was reunited.  We came to the conclusion that it would be wiser to turn around and head back then try to force our way through the snow and possibly getting stuck.  So we turned around and headed back the way we came which brought up a new problem.  We had been driving around for the majority of the day and some of us were starting to run low on fuel.  At the rate that we were going at least two of us were bound to run out.  Once again we pulled over to discuss our options.  Fortunately we were about 15 miles away from a little town.  It was a little out of our way and we would have to backtrack but it was the best option for the situation.

We crept our way into town.  Filled up and headed back out.  With a new found vigor and the feeling of dread vanishing, we felt that we could take the time to enjoy the scenery.  We finally rolled back into camp.  Filthy and covered in dirt.  I’ve been dirty before, but I haven't had to scrape dirt off my face in a long time.  We busted out the wet wipes and gave ourselves a quick sponge bath.  Don't worry we did eventual shower later that night before going to bed.  We lit a fire and enjoyed our dinner.  Reminiscing about the days events.  We came to the conclusion that we had traveled about 127 miles in total.  Not a small feet in utvs.  All in all it was a good day.

I have always enjoyed getting out in to the wilds of Utah.  Whether it riding, jeeping, camping or whatever, its always enjoyable.  We have explore a lot of terrain in Utah throughout the years.  I’m hoping to be able to learn more about Illinois.  For myself and for everyone else.  I may never have the intimate knowledge about Illinois as I do with Utah, but it will be fun trying to figure it out.

As always.  Thanks for stopping by.  Until next time.

Josh

BHS Graduation

What’s up everybody?

I have to apologize for our little hiatus.  Being on vacation and dealing with some things at work, has made it a little difficult for me to find time to sit and write.  That being said, everything is now set in order and I should be able to keep up with my weekly posts.

As I had mentioned above, we recently returned from a trip back home to Utah.  Like most vacations, we would've loved to have spent a few more days out there.  We were not able to visit with everyone that we wanted to, but it was awesome to see the ones we did.  Next time hopefully we wont be as rushed.  We did go on a few adventures while we where out there that I’m excited to tell you about here in the next few weeks or so.

The main reason that we made it out to Utah was to celebrate our sister Makenna’s High School Graduation.  She was 1 of 786 (plus or minus a few) students graduating from the prestigious Bingham High School (BHS).  BHS has a long tradition of excellence in both academics and sports in Utah.  They always seem to be the high school that all other school gun for.

Makenna’s graduation was quite the big deal, as she has become the last sibling to graduate from high school.  The days leading up to the big day had became a stress filled mess.  Pulling everything together for the celebration afterwards became the priority.  Getting food, cleaning the house, putting up decorations and so much more was on menu.  I think Erin’s mom was on the verge of a mental break down.

Once the chaos had settled everything turned out great.  The day of was pretty much as you would expect.  We took pictures and attended the ceremony.  Lucky for us all the speakers were fairly upbeat and kept the audience engaged.  I don’t know about you, but for me I hate it when I’m listening to someone speaking and they are monotoned and uninteresting.

The after party went off without a hitch as well.  Family and friends all came to pay their respects and to wish Makenna well on her big milestone. As the night went on, little by little, everyone eventually left and the core family members were left there to reminisce about the days events. Before running out the door to take new family pictures. Since opportunities to have the whole family together become more infrequent.

I want to personally say how proud we are of Makenna.  I have been lucky enough to watch her grow up into the strong and independent woman that she is.  We can’t wait to see what is in store for her, and the future she will make for herself. We know that there are great things headed her way.

Congrats to all of the graduating classes of 2017.  Until next time.

Josh