Things to do around Champaign area (Chicago, Peoria: rent, hotel, house)

[ucrox]

For those of you who responded to my earlier threads, thank you!

We have made it to Champaign, rented a house and started work.

Finding a house was a pain. Especially all these property managers are just way too rigid and restrictive in every way. And the whole renting process is just such a big hassle. In our case, they had us call even the garbage pickup services ourselves. Seriously, why do they even turn off the garbage services for the house? Hardly $20, $25 a month ... you would think they would be able to work that in to the rent and just leave it on.

And we were not even aware that the renting season here is Aug-Jul, following the college. Since we moved in June, it was a lot harder to find a decent place.

Anyway, now that we have sort of settled (just a week), we are wondering whats to do around here. We already went to the Savoy theaters, the Marketplace mall and drove around a little.

We are a young couple (early 30s) moved here from the San Francisco bay area.

Any good restaurants, short drives, day trips, lakes, parks, scenic drives, national & state parks / reserves will help a lot.

I noticed Champaign has an elaborate July 4 program, how good is it? Is there any other celebration nearby thats worth going to?

Thanks!

[04JETTA]

One place to def. check out is Cakes on Walnut in downtown, there are some other resteraunts as well, but this is the one I hear about the most you can also check out downtownchampaign.com

[ucrox]

Is Cakes on Walnut just a coffee/pastry place or a restaurant?

Yeah, the downtownchampaign site looks good. Good source of info.

[steve_holt]

Here are some places I like. I vegetarian, so I my tastes are probably different.

Downtown Champaign:
Escobar's
Radio Maria
Seven Saints

Downtown Urbana:
V. Picasso
Crane Alley

Others:
Dos Reales (Mexican)
Papa Del's (Pizza)


I'm probably missing quite a few. Yelp is well used in C-U. Also, here's a good restaurant site:
Champaign Taste

[steve_holt]

Should also say that Lake of the Woods park in Mahomet is pretty nice, as is Allerton Park in Monticello. Not much compared to Bay Area offerings though.

[ucrox]

Been to Crane Alley and Dos Reales (Mexican) already. I like the food at both the places. Dos Reales is definitely a lunch-only place and Crane Alley has pretty good food but a bit expensive for the experience they offer.

This weekend probably we will drive around to a few places. Lake of the woods seems nice. Is it like a public park?

[Aerio]

Take a glance at the217.com
It has the local happenings around town and more.

• There's some more shopping in Tuscola: outlet mall and the Amish "mall".
• There's a farmer's market every Saturday in Urbana. I recommend going in the morning.
• There's an apple orchard in Champaign that's popular, Curtis Apple Orchard. I don't know if the apples are already ready to pick, it's more of a fall thing obviously. They have neat things in their shop.
• There's a drive-in movie theater out in Gibson City, 30 minutes to the NW. Website: HARVEST MOON TWIN DRIVE IN
• Kickapoo State Park is about 30 minutes east, in Danville. Website: DNR
• Peoria has a casino: Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino in East Peoria, Illinois | ParadiceCasino.com
• The University has events that can be fun. Illinois Campus Calendar: General | Illinois (http://illinois.edu/calendar/Calendar?calId=7 - broken link)
• UIUC also has the Spurlock Museum (it's OK...nothing to marvel at and it's free), Krannert Center (art, music).

[04JETTA]

Originally Posted by ucrox

Is Cakes on Walnut just a coffee/pastry place or a restaurant?

Yeah, the downtownchampaign site looks good. Good source of info.

Its a cupcake place, amazing cupcakes, makes the parking downtown seem cheap

[ucrox]

So we went to Lake of the woods yesterday (such a hot day), drove around, most of the park seem to be flooded.

I was looking for some exciting trials. But most of the trails on the west side of Illinois 47 seem to be in open grass. Didn't look very welcoming. Maybe on a better day.

There was some crowd near the pools. All other trails seem to be only bike trails.

We visited the Early American history museum. It is an entertaining venue for kids.

We drove to Clinton Lake. That place was pretty full. We don't have a boat and we saw only a couple of places to sit by the water.

This was more of an exploratory trip than anything else.

Next maybe we will visit the Kikapoo Landing and couple of other places I saw on DNR site.

Thank you for all your responses. I will try them one after another and try to detail my experience here.

Last weekend we went to the Savoy 16 theater. Much smaller than what we are used to. Also, it was pretty OK to see more than one movie. Does anyone know if that is OK here, in general, or is it frowned up on. I would generally buy some stuff from the concession stand (at their bloated prices, I know I am better off buying another set of tickets ) )

Also I heard good things about the Possum Trot in Oakwood. Anyone here have anything to share about that place?

[Drover]

A neat place to eat is Flat Top Grill, a Chicago-based local/regional chain of do-it-yourself stir-fry. Also, some brunch place just opened up in downtown Champaign and for the life of me I can't figure out what it's called and can't find a single scrap of information about it online. But my BIL tried it recently and highly recommends it.

Best casual eats in town would be The Courier Cafe, just around the corner from Crane Alley. And right around the corner from Courier is a decent, relatively new barbecue joint called Black Dog. Lil' Porgy's is pretty good too. Don't put much stock in the rest of the "barbecue" places in town.

Stay away from El Toro. Additionally, La Bamba is a sorry excuse for a burrito house that managed to establish itself before Mexicans made their way into the Chicago suburbs and therefore the UofI student body largely didn't know any better. But they're there now and they're open for an hour after the bars are closed, so they're a drunkard's salvation. When your main clientele are 21-year-olds too drunk to be picky about the quality of the food, it's probably not that great.

The best beer house in town is The Blind Pig pub. Crane Alley is also a pretty decent beer house but it seems you've already been there. Pool tables there are pretty cheap too, I think $5 an hour before peak hours, and then $10/hr during peak.

For local breweries (since you mentioned them in your other thread), central Illinois is pretty lacking. Blind Pig (mentioned above) opened its own brewpub a few months ago a couple blocks away from its beer house. Desthil's in Bloomington is about to open a Champaign branch -- don't get too excited. John Rhodell's in Peoria might be worth a road trip. Most of the Midwest's quality breweries are in Wisconsin and Michigan with a few in the Chicago area.

As far as scenic places, well.... there's just not a lot to see around here. It's why 60% of Chicagoans do their weekending in Wisconsin. The other 40% go to Michigan. We warned you that it was going to be a drastic adjustment. Hope you manage to make the best of it.