August 4th, 2018
Rockford, IL

This day held considerably less silly roadside sites, but still got me 431 miles closer to Spokane.

Breakfast at the Perk Cup Cafe was considerably larger than expected.  I ordered turkey sausage along with my eggs, hash browns, and biscuit, trying to think healthy.  Healthy might have been one patty, not three huge sausage patties.  Afterward I waddled to my truck and hit the road.

And saw nothing unusual before lunch.  A combination of a dearth of silly roadside oddities within reasonable distance of the highway and the fact that some are gone (the demise of Howie the Giant Cow in Valparaiso, IN, can only be mourned) meant a morning without comic relief.

Lunch was at the Lachyd Da Brewing Company in Elkhart, IN.  I ordered a salad as I felt the need to due culinary penance after my monstrous breakfast, but all hope of caloric reasonableness were dashed when the salad came.

The salad was delicious and the Red Ale was mighty fine. It’s so tempting to try more than one type of beer at these places, but at lunch I limit it to one as a long drive on a hot day after more than one beer is relatively contraindicated.

I was skunked some more in the afternoon (sorry, no giant skunk statuary), even finding the giant rocking chair in Pingree Grove broken!

I’ll admit that I skipped a couple of places, including the giant standing hot dogs at the Superdawg Drive-In, as these were in Chicago, and I am not fond of driving in big cities.

The day ended on a high note, however. Sort of. I was expecting an entire museum in Lockport, IL, dedicated solely to sock monkeys, but it turned out to simply be a curated display inside an otherwise quite wonderful museum. But a fine display it was!

The Midway Village Museum turned out to be a really nice, well-curated, museum dedicated to the history of Rockport from early settler times to local teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League  to Rockford’s industrial heyday and on to current times. Very nice displays dealing with the many industrial companies that made this place home to include W.A. Whitney, Barnes Drill Company, Amerock, Estwng Manufacturing, Greenlee, Mattison Machine Works, and Rockford Tool Company.

Many of these are companies that few people have heard of, but are part of that whole group of industries that are (or were) the bedrock of our economy.  I was reminded of the scene from A Civil Action where, after having told the members of a likely cancer cluster that there were simply no deep pockets to go after in the case, John Travolta’s character spots two trucks unloading at the tannery in question, one from W.R. Grace and the other from Beatrice Foods.  Neither companies well-known to the public, but huge, high-profitable companies nonetheless.

Oh, and of course, there were displays of sock monkeys.  I arrived at 3:30 and asked to buy a ticket for the museum.  The kind elderly lady at the front counter asked if I knew they closed at 4:00.  Fine, says I, just point me to the sock monkeys!  According to a handout she gave me:

The Sock Monkey Doll is an important part of Rockford’s history.  In 1880 the Nelson Knitting Company was incorporated.  John Nelson, a Swedish immigrant, invented the seamless sock knitting machine.  The Nelson Knitting Co. was the first to commercially produce seamless socks.

John Nelson came to this country in 1852 and was amongst the first Swedish settlers to arrive by train in Rockford.  It took nearly ten years to perfect the machine.  After Nelson’s detain 1883, his sons made an improvement on the machine and started the Forest Knitting Co.  These machines made a “work sock” worn mainly by farmers and factory workers.  It was sturdy and comfortable.  Rockford socks became known as the standard of the industry.

These socks were used to make sock dolls.  In 1932 the red heal was added to the sock.  In 1955 Nelson Knitting received a patent for the sock monkey doll.  Rockford proudly is the Home of the Sock Monkey.

There you have it, Dear Readers:  Rockford, IL, Home of the Sock Monkey.

There was also a nice reconstruction of the Greater Rockford, an airplane COL Bert Hassel attempted to fly from Rockford to Sweden via a polar route in 1928.  He crash landed on day 2 but, as was often the case in those days, became a local hero nonetheless.

I wandered downtown trying to find the Carlisle Brewing Company.  Streets were blocked off for a local foot race, so I had to park and walk, which was fortuitous, as Rockford is really a pretty nice place.  For a location I chose along my route based on not wanting to drive more than 6-7 hours per day, and for a fairly industrial northern city, Rockford is a pleasant place to visit.  After a bit of a walk on a humid August day, Carlisle’s Belgian Summer lager was very refreshing.  I would buy this in Spokane if available.

I then sought out my dinner destination and was delighted to find the Prairie Street Brewing Company  was in a beautifully restored and renovated historic brewery.  Nice.

I repeated the Sins of Breakfast and gorged myself of a massive pastrami on rye with onion rings.  Their Rocktown Brown was the perfect fermented accompaniment.

Heading into Wisconsin on Day 3, so you can expect a more dairy/cheese theme to roadside attractions.  Oh, how the excitement builds!