I woke up early to have breakfast with Greg and Carol before heading off on my next leg, a 450 mile haul to the Chicago suburbs where I’d spend the night with my buddy Marcus and his family. The ride was to be relatively straightforward, taking I-94 and I-90 for 6 and a half hours before arriving in Lemont, IL. Quickly packing up the Jeep after a toasted bagel with an assortment of cream cheese options, I made use of being in Minneapolis and stopped by my friend Emma’s house (Greg’s daughter) to meet her three young boys. Hanging out for half an hour or so, I hopped back in the Grand Cherokee and headed towards the highway. The weather was absolutely perfect, in the mid-60s with the sun shining and wispy clouds in the air. I rolled the windows down and rolled my eyes as I eased onto the brakes and made my way into the stop-and-go traffic of Minneapolis’ morning commuter traffic.
With Emma & Her Boys
Passing MSP's Delta Hangar
With the promise of Marcus’ famous homemade BBQ waiting for me in Lemont, I knew my day was to destined to have minimal distractions en route. I had but one instruction: to stop in Osseo, Wisconsin, at the famous Norske Nook Bakery to pick up pies. Two hours after my departure I pulled off the highway and began following the GPS down the quiet back roads of Osseo. Easily finding parking alongside the bakery, I wandered inside to discovery a little breakfast restaurant with a wide array of pies lining the food display cases. I had been given specific instruction from Marcus to get a banana cream pie for him and strawberry-rhubarb for his wife Molly… I then of course needed a slice of raspberry pie for myself. The challenge with the pies was keeping them from baking in the sun over the course of the remaining hours of my drive. Of course I had the fridge in the back, but fitting the gigantic pies required me emptying out everything else from inside and then rearranging it all. Not wanting to let Marcus down with his one simple wish for pie, I sat on the edge of the road in this tiny little town and unloaded every piece of produce from the fridge onto the sidewalk and wiggled the pies in (with less than a millimeter to spare on each side) and piled everything else that would fit back in on top and discarding food I knew I wouldn’t be consuming before getting home.
I drove slowly back out of town, cruising down wide roads with small houses and manicured front lawns before merging back onto the highway and back into the figurative slipstream of interstate travel. Everything was going flawlessly until I reached for my single slice of pie and realized I didn’t have a utensil to eat it with. Fear not, I flipped on my hazard and strobe lights and pulled over to the side of the road to fish one out of our cooking gear in the back of the Jeep. I was laughing as 18-wheelers were moving over into different lanes to give me space in the brake-down lane as they whizzed by… if only they could have known I was simply looking for a fork to eat my pie with.
Downtown Osseo & The Norske Nook
The World's Most Delicious Pie
I hit the traffic starting about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, making a brief pit-stop to fill up the Grand Cherokee’s tank and getting back on the road. I’d been getting text messages all afternoon of the food Marcus was preparing, and I was eager to get there. I crossed the Illinois state line just after 15h30, and arrived at his place about an hour later. We spent the night sitting around the table on his back porch with neighbors, family, and a few friends from work who were in town doing production for an event in the city. The vast array of food was incredible and I did my best to pace myself to ensure I consumed as much as I could. We finished the night with the Norske Nook pies I had carried 350 miles for dessert, and I retired to bed on a massively full stomach. It had been a relatively short day in comparison to the long hauls the two days prior, and I rested well knowing that the trip was slowly nearing its end.
Traffic on the Outskirts of Town
Marcus The Master Chef
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