Tinkering

Did you know that Ulysses S. Grant lived in Galena, working at his father’s leather good store before joining up with the union in the civil war?

Also, they tell me Galena got it’s name from the natural mineral of the same name that is otherwise known as lead sulfide. (Wikipedia link.) This is because, you guessed it, this is what was the area’s chief export in it’s initial heyday of the early 19th century.

Ok, on to the important stuff. we scored with the restaurant selection since Saturday night. Bernadine’s Stillman Inn serves up a tasty breakfast daily so that’s covered. Yesterday we went to lunch at Vinny Vanucchi’s Little Italy and in word, since i am not a review, nummy. Heather had shells stuffed with ricotta in an alfredo sauce and I had one of the house specialties, the seafood italiano i think it was called, whic had shirmp, scallops, lobster, etc… covered in cheesy goodness. We followed it up with dinner at a new restaurant called One Eleven Main. Heather had this awesome chicken with with garlic mashed potatos that tasted just like you always hope they would when you order them in the restaurant. I had the new york strip, peppered, with blue cheese mashed potatos, oh so good! both came with these brussel sprouts in a butter sauce with bacon bits that was the perfect compliment.

Today we went to Durty Gurt’s Burger Joynt with their big, juicy burgers and homemade fries. Sorry, no website. Their motto is, “You have two choices for dinner, take it or leave it!” Corny, but good burgers.

One of the things we like to do is grab a christmas ornament from the places we visit. It was a bummer last year when we went to Cedarburg, WI and counldn’t find one. It looked like this trip would have the same fate, not even the seasonal store, you know the obligatory holiday store that is in every tourist center, had one so we were doubtful we would fine one but today luck smiled on us and we found a great little ornament of Grant’s house. Whew, that was a close one!

…before the baby comes that is. We are going to Galena Illinois for a few days. Never been there before, don’t know much about it… I just hope it’s fun and restful.

Here are some of the links that I looked at prior to choosing Galena:

http://www.galena.org/
http://www.galena.com/
http://www.galenachamber.com/

I’ll let you know if we like it or not.

A few of us from my church are doing a type of “The Biggest Loser” contest that started on January 3rd and will be going until April 25th. We will have weekly weigh-ins and prizes will be given out every week for the “biggest loser” of the week, with a grand prize to the overall “biggest loser” at the end. To that end I have signed up to track my caloric intake at “Calorie Count”, an about.com website.

This is a great site that helps me track calories, fat, carbs and protein as well as exercise. My favorite part of the site is the recipe analysis feature where you add a new recipe and it spits out all the nutritional information based on the raw ingredients entered. It is not 100%, for instance, it is not easy to switch out a single ingredient with something similar to adjust the recipe when the analysis comes back slightly off, but that is a little thing. I have found that the database is fairly comprehensive and it is easy to add items not listed and tag them for quick reference in the future.

The best part about the site is that it is free (actually ad sponsored). About.com has always been really good about the quality and type of ads allowed so having to put up with that to get such a good service for free is more than acceptable to me.