The second day of our vacation was mostly driving, with a mundane 535-mile Interstate route outlined from Chicago, Illinois, to Buffalo, New York. This was our first trip in our new-to-us 2015 Toyota Sienna, a solid upgrade from our 15-year-old Dodge Grand Caravan.
Breakfast
While the kids would have been happy with the hotel’s free breakfast, I wanted to take advantage of our unique location and identified the Chiu Quon Bakery & Dim Sum as our destination. Eilidh was enamored with the strawberry mousse cake, and I let her have it for breakfast, but she ended up liking the plainer and cheaper cheese bar bun more. All of the Chinese buns were tasty with a winning combo of savory meat wrapped in a thick, sweet dough.
Eilidh was very excited for her breakfast but ate far more of the cheese bun than the strawberry mousse cake.
Lunch
We had an extremely late lunch in Toledo, Ohio, which was (almost) halfway between Chicago and Buffalo. Jet’s was a regional pizza chain but the Detroit-style pies were fantastic, and the modest park picnic tables and nice weather made for a really solid lunch. Amanda also received positive news from her appointment just before we stopped, so the girls held up 8 fingers each to celebrate 8 years of her being cancer-free!
I also grabbed a chili dog from Rudy’s, a Toledo staple that was conveniently next door to the pizza place.
Eight years cancer-free!
Dinner
We drove as efficiently as possible to Angola on the Lake, New York, for a late dinner at Connor’s Hot Dog Stand. Google said the well-reviewed spot closed at 9:00, but when we arrived, we learned it was open until 11:00 and we would have had more time to spare. Nonetheless, an earlier dinner meant an earlier hotel arrival. The char-grilled dogs were good but I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat there again.
Other Notes
- Our original itinerary included a root beer stop at Dog n’ Suds, but it runs out the Elmyra, Ohio, location along our route shut down early for the season due to staffing issues and the owner’s medical concerns.
- Our odometer passed 100,000 on our drive in far eastern Ohio, a few miles before we entered Pennsylvania.
- We spent almost as much time in traffic due to road construction in Indiana as we did the day before for actual traffic in Chicago.
- I tried the reformulated Coke Zero for the first time; it tasted fine if not remarkably different from how I remember the prior iteration tasting.