This summer in Rockford it's going to feel like we are at the epicenter of live concerts and festivals with so much happening in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and everywhere in between.
If you're an Illinoisan with a patio or deck (or even if you just hang out in your garage), summertime is a great time for being outside and enjoying it. If you can remember to keep some of this particular material around your deck, patio, or garage, you'll enjoy this summer much more than you have in the past. As an added bonus, this stuff is pretty inexpensive.
It wouldn't be surprising if you're thinking to yourself "I've had deep-dish pizza, what else is there when it comes to foods that are Illinois-centric?" Well, for one thing, there's some debate about how "Illinois" deep-dish pizza really is, and for another, there are plenty of foods that Illinoisans eat more than Chicago-style pizza, so let's take a look.
It truly used to be the pride of Illinois and saw explosive growth. Now this once-great Illinois place has seen massive decay and abandonment and is described as the city that 'America has forgotten'. A new journey through it proves this sadly remains true.
After making the mistake of once telling my dad I was bored during summer vacation and having him find lots of chores for me to fix that, I've been careful about saying something is boring. However, travel websites that track these sorts of things have no problem at all telling you that Illinois has got some seriously dull places to visit...assuming you'd ever want to.
I've read time and time again about people in other states who've made it a game or bucket list thing to hit every single restaurant from their state that has been featured on TV's Diners, Drive Ins, & Dives. If you're up for a similar challenge, take a look at where you'd go if you wanted to do the same thing here in Illinois.
I've been fairly accused of being a pessimistic person, but I'm wildly optimistic compared to a worst-case scenario model that shows Missouri could supposedly be underwater someday.