kitchtrips

Monday 26 May 2025

Slept great last night – the exhaustion of race day and race weekend meant I was out literally as soon as my head hit the pillow. If recent years are anything to go by, I’ll probably sleep really well again tonight, as well.

It is Memorial Day in America, a public holiday for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have died whilst serving in the armed forces. It always falls on the last Monday in May, and I suppose the closest Australian comparison would be Anzac Day, except for the fact that Memorial Day doesn’t fall on the date of any famous battle.

We packed up at the Airbnb early and headed out for brunch to Lincoln Pancake House in nearby Irvington with Ryan, Audrey and more than a half a dozen others from the ever-growing group. Coffee, orange juice, pancakes, skillets, omelettes…and lots of conversation. A good amount of it was , naturally, about yesterday’s race. We were outdoors but undercover, which was very pleasant in the warm sun.

Last year I ordered a Spanish omelette and got a spinach one due to some language barrier difficulties (!!) so I went for the Western omelette, which really can’t be confused with any other menu items, and wasn’t disappointed. I shouldn’t have eaten the two pancakes that came with it…but I did anyway. When in Rome, or America, right?

A lot of us went our separate ways after breakfast. Ryan is off to China this week for a Formula E race, David and Martin heading home to England via Nashville, Atlanta and New York, Sam back to St Louis…and us off to Chicago for the week before flying back to Los Angeles and on to Sydney. It’s much more fun to say hello to Indianapolis than goodbye, but what a week it’s been! One for the books, and I never take these amazing race weeks for granted.

April and Adam were headed to Chicago as well, so we made two stops with them, at the Albanese Candy factory outlet – as far as I can tell, no relation to our recently re-elected Prime Minister – near the Indiana-Illinois state line and then for lunch at Outback Steakhouse.

Look, I’m not the biggest fan of Outback as it is, but when the food is late, and comes after much apologising and also after the server managed to spill most of the contents of a glass of Sprite into my lap…things aren’t great.

Conscious that we were having deep dish pizza for dinner, which is incredibly filling, I opted for the “Tasmanian” chilli and a baked sweet potato. One or the other, but I’m guessing it was probably the chilli, had me bailing out of the car at a roadside gas station less than half an hour later! Just as well there was a bathroom nearby or it could all have been a whole lot worse.  All in all, not my favourite Outback experience ever…

Made it into the Chicago suburbs around 3:30pm. Picked up some beer and went around to Mike and Jane’s house for dinner. Great to see Mike’s parents (Brian and Debbie) and Jane’s parents (Frank and Ivana) as well as Bri, Ava and Miles. A fun night eating traditional Chicago deep dish pizza from Giordano’s. Nice to see so many friends all in one place.

A string of long days starting to take their toll. Nothing doing tomorrow morning other than some washing…after a sleep-in. And a well-deserved one at that!