Chicago I--Thumbs Up for Moline!

Dave and I visited Jonny and Jenny in Chicago, the weekend of October 20, 2012.  Since Jonny has taken a job at John Deere when he graduates from the University of Chicago next summer, Dad and I took an inspection trip with Jonny to Moline, Illinois, headquarters of John Deere.  Jonny may well spend some time in Moline, one of the Quad Cities on the Mississippi, on the boundary of Illinois and Iowa.  We missed Jenny, who had to work.

Jonny arranged for the lady who recruited him to show us around John Deere headquarters.  It was a beautiful building designed by Eric Saarinen, a prominent American architect, on a huge acreage filled with lakes, forests, statues of deer, and deer running free.

The headquarters building had an atrium with glass and beams in the shape of a modern barn, but filled with foliage and pumpkins, during this fall season.  There was also a large collection of art on its walls.  It was truly and elegant structure.

One large area was filled with John Deere products, from a model of an early plow to the latest tractors and harvesters.

We also stopped at the John Deere Pavilion in downtown Moline, with more farming equipment and displays, including a depiction of the steps that it takes for raw cotton harvested by John Deere to be turned into a pair of jeans.  There was also a shop with all manner of John Deere products.  I could imagine Jonny and Jenny's little boy someday wearing a pair of John Deere overalls and playing with a little John Deere tractor.

 

 

After his first trip to Moline, Jonny described the cuisine as "one TGI Fridays."  We saw and documented that TGI Fridays.

We also found four more quaint ethnic restaurants, on just one Moline street.  I certainly would have tried the Little Rangoon restaurant, with food from Burma, if it had been open.  After passing Indian and Thai cafes, we settled on Lagomarcino's, specializing in soup, pie, and homemade candy.  The chili and peach pie were great, and we left with a bag of truffles and chocolate creams.

Downtown Moline had picturesque buildings from the 1800s.

We trekked across the Mississippi River to Davenport, Iowa, to visit the Figge Museum.  It wasn't the Art Institute of Chicago, but it had an excellent collection, nevertheless, sponsored by the University of Iowa.  We were fascinated by the special exhibition on "Posing Beauty in African-American Culture," with photos of beautiful African American women from several generations.  We wished Jenny was with us, since she has been so immersed in African-American culture through her work as a nurse on the South Side of Chicago.

 

I especially enjoyed the works in the permanent collection from such midwestern artists as Grant Wood, John Curry, and Thomas Benton.  There was also furniture by Frank Lloyd Wright, another Midwestern icon.

 

 

The Figge had many other pieces, including modern and ethnic art.

 

Before heading back across the Mississippi River to Illinois, we stopped at Whitey's, an old-time ice cream store that sold pumpkin shakes and pumpkin ice cream sandwiches (a slab of pumpkin ice cream between two gingersnaps). The store was recommended by a classmate of Jonny's at the University of Chicago who grew up in the Quad Cities.  It was fun to watch the Middle America clientele--moms and their daughters in biking helmets, with the daughters wearing furry boots! I also liked the Whitey's slogan--"Now you know you're home."

 

 

We paused by the showboat/casino docked on the river, a relic of Mark Twain's era.  We looked down the wide Mississippi and then drove back over the bridge to Illinois and the freeway to Chicago.  We looked forward to exploring the Moline area further another time.  "We've just scratched the surface," we decided.