Dinner at Ascione Bistro, Overnight at the Sophy Hotel with Paige

July 14, 2023

An interesting split in the vacation for the Ford Kids. Audrey and Sebastian are off to visit Kirt and Anne’s family in Michigan, but Paige was catching a flight back home. She’s doing an internship, and has about a week’s worth of work that she needed to return home for.

We opted to hang out with her today, and to help her catch her flight tomorrow at Midway.

Unfortunately, our house isn’t quite suitable for hosting just yet. And on top of that, Paige is pretty allergic to the bunnies. So what we decided on was to get her a room at the nearby Sophy hotel. And we also got ourselves a room, alongside hers. And we decided to make a night of hanging out in Hyde Park together, before her flight tomorrow morning.

I picked up Paige in Valpo around 2PM, and we got back in the city around 3:30 PM. From there, we stopped by the house to gather Liz and we all ended up walking over to the hotel (which was only about 2 blocks away).

Fun bit of trivia: we walked up Dorchester, to get to the hotel. And I was reminded of the photos we took, back many years ago when the site was still under construction.

A view of Paige’s room. We didn’t think it would be very fun to have all three of us share a room, so Liz and I got one room and Paige got her own.

Tricia came to visit us some time back, and this hotel is also where she stayed. Tricia’s room was pretty similar to this one.

The rooms all come with a small record player, and a few albums. I was reminded of our trip to Portland, and how we had to relocate from a terrible AirBnB after one night… and spent the remainder of our trip at the Ace Hotel. Which also had its own record player and albums.

A nice bonus: Liz and I got an upgrade, and ended up with a suite. And our room was right next to Paige’s room.

Bedroom. We had a ton of windows, pretty much lining the whole West and South sides of the room.

A view of the bathroom.

We learned that the room was ADA compliant. And I also learned that the design of the bathroom had a few quirks that may not have revealed themselves on the blueprints/layouts.

Another odd moment, involving the design of the bathroom: when Liz started taking a shower, we saw the water rush past the area that seemed to be the border of the shower itself.

Water started to come into the middle of the bathroom, and this freaked us both out… and had us putting up a makeshift towel barrier.

We ultimately found out that a second drain in the middle of the bathroom would catch most of the overflow. And that perhaps the bathroom was designed in this way. But it was disconcerting to say the least, and gave us the temporary fear that we were flooding the entire suite.

For the remainder of the late afternoon, Liz and I hung out and read on the couch. And Paige was in her room, finishing up some last minute homework assignments. A fairly slow, and relaxed few hours as the evening came on.

A book that we found on the coffee table: Chicago’s Historic Hyde Park, by Susan O’Connor Davis.

And hey – that’s our house!

Closeup/detail. Don’t recognize the car.

Fun bit of trivia: our house is technically “The Beman house,” which I believe is named after Solon Spencer Beman.

The Beman house was described by the Hyde Park Herald on July 11, 1885 as a “unique and original design and a model for a cozy little home.” The automobile-filled setting reflects the dense urbanization of the center of Hyde Park.

A sketch of our home.

A bit before 7PM, we headed out for dinner at Ascione Bistro, a neighborhood favorite. Also very fitting – when Tricia was last visiting, we took her out here to eat as well.

Me and Paige.

Group photo, over desserts. We arrived at dusk, and by the time we finished up… it was getting pretty dark. On bringing us the bill, our server cautioned us about the weather and said a storm was on its way in about 30 minutes.

Liz and Paige walked back to the hotel, while I stopped off to feed the bunnies. Though I had an umbrella and the walk was quick, I just barely missed getting hit by that storm. When the rain finally came, I was safe inside and watching things from our window.

The remainder of the night was pretty subdued. Paige visited briefly, but we mostly just rested up in our rooms, and Liz and I watched a bit of TV.

A fun, low-key kind of day. And got the chance to hang out with Paige, one on one, which was very special.