Weekend Getaway

The girls had a couple extra days off from school around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we decided to take a little trip to Galena, Illinois. We have access to a timeshare condo that Dave's parents have there. The property has an indoor pool, which is lots of fun for the girls, especially in the middle of winter. The condo also has a full kitchen, so we packed up some food, grabbed our swimsuits, brought along some good books for reading, and drove up to Galena which is only about 2.5 hours away.

We basically stayed in our condo the whole time, but we did venture out once to eat dinner. If you haven't been to Galena, it is a historic mining town right on the Mississippi River. In it's heyday it was one of the biggest cities in Illinois and the port was bustling with riverboats. Now, Galena is a small resort town and a tourist destination for skiiers, golfers, antique buyers, and shoppers.

In downtown Galena, we stopped to eat at a place called "Durty Gurtz Burger Joynt" which served a variety of tasty burgers. The decor of the restaurant included toilet's used as planters and kitschy signs/sayings covering the walls. I only mention this because when you take a kindergartner, who is really starting to take off when it comes to reading, to a place like this be prepared. Paige had to read out-loud every single sign, some of which, although not R-rated, were definitely not common sayings around our house or anything you would want your 6 year-old repeating.

Of course, the most challenging part was the fact that her decoding skills are much higher than her comprehension skills. She could read the words but had to keep asking us what it means, the humor and sarcasm were a little above her head. Here are a few examples:

EXAMPLE #1: A sign playing off the name of the restaurant- She's not Durty, she's just Gurty. Paige kept asking as what "Gurty" means. She seemed skeptical when we told her it's just the name of the restaurant.

EXAMPLE #2: CAUTION, don't drink water, fish crap in it. After reading this sign, Paige was very suspicious of her glass of water sitting on the table.

EXAMPLE #3: There is a skinny girl inside of me trying to get out, but I can usually keep her quiet with cookies. This one just creeped Paige out.

Basically, to get a little peace, we ended up telling Paige to stop reading and we weren't going to talk about the signs and sayings anymore.

By the way, the burgers were delicious. They have to use a long bamboo skewer to hold the burgers together. Mine was so big I couldn't bite it; I had to use a knife and fork, but I got to use my hands for the sweet potato fries!