A Visit to Sleepy Hollow

"The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

July 19-20: Sleepy Hollow is a town in Illinois that nobody heard of and most people think I made up. I didn't, but somebody else made it up in the 1950's out of corn fields. It's a suburb of wide-open lawns and spacious ranch and bi-level houses, all within easy commuter train distance of Chicago. My college roommate Joy and her family have lived here for about 15 years.

While Joy and her neighbor Jill and I visited some breweries in Chicago, her husband Steve took their son and visiting California friends to the Chicago Blues Museum and to the graves of some famous blues musicians. It's amazing what you can find on the Internet: Steve got the grave locations at http://www.deadbluesguys.com/. Afterwards we all met up at Pizzaria Due in downtown Chicago, to partake of some authentic deep dish pizza. (Photo above, L to R: Joy, Pat, Scott, Andrew, Teri, Casey, Jill, and Steve.)

With three friends visiting from California and a visiting Brewmaster, Joy and Steve threw a barbeque and all the neighbors came over. I took the opportunity to educate the suburbans about the glories of Belgian beers, hoppy beers, and wood-aged beers. After food and beer everybody enjoyed a spontaneous blues jam with Andrew on blues harp and Scott on guitar (photo below). These guys really rocked out and everybody sang along. Who ever said the suburbs were boring?