Is there life in the NW Chicago suburbs?
Ooh, desjardins. I’m in Cary. We’re going to have to have a meetup out here. I got my bike at Main Street Bikes in Carpentersville. It’s a little hike down 31 but worth it. There’s a trail that runs through Crystal Lake but I mostly stick around home to ride, though I’d be interested in a trail I could get to fairly easily. I’ve been going to the Farmers Market in Woodstock for the last few weeks. The beef rancher there told me that everything is local — if, for example, corn comes in too early, the farmer isn’t allowed to sell it that day. Also, Groundhog Day was filmed in the plaza. There’s an opera house that occasionally has lectures and a bookstore that I haven’t had a chance to go into because I have to get to the market very early to pick up my CSA share. There’s a nice yarn store in Crystal Lake if you knit or crochet. I’m having a terrible time adjusting to living so far out in the suburbs, so I’ll be watching this closely. I think there are more progressive people out here t
Oh man….I lived in Crystal Lake for 6 months last year and it was pretty desolate. There’s extremely good Mexican food at the La Rosita grocery store in downtown Crystal Lake (but across the tracks from the quaint-looking downtown area). There’s another really good lunch counter at the mexican grocery at Pomeroy and 14 in Crystal Lake (I think that’s the right intersection); near there, anyway, and with a green, white, and red sign. If you’re into punk music and the types of people that are into punk music, you should check out the White House in Woodstock; I think they don’t do shows at the house itself anymore, but you’ll be able to find some interesting people through the people at the shows listed at that myspace page. You’ll have to deal with lots of high schoolers, though; at least, that was the case at the house venue when I was photographing the scene at the end of last year. There’s a house in Wonder Lake that periodically did
