Illinois

A Swedish Breakfast 

Midway Village Museum

The old-fashioned, handcrafted sock monkey dolls made with Original Rockford Red Heel® socks from Fox River Mills have become a favorite piece of "Americana" over the years.  Intended and worn even today as work socks, mothers in the early 1900's fashioned these Rockford socks into sock monkeys for their children.  Clever crafters have been making Sock Monkeysand other animal sock dolls ever since. In 1890, Nelson Knitting began manufacturing these Red Heeled socks. Fox River Mills purchased Nelson Knitting in 1992. Today, the instructions for making these dolls are still included in each package of authentic Red Heel Monkey socks.  Crafters have been lovingly making Sock Monkeys for generations

 

Rockford's pioneer aviators including Col. Bert Hassell and his 1928 attempt to be the first  to fly the "Great Circle" route to Europe in his plane The Greater Rockford . The plane ran out of fuel in Greenland. The Greater Rockford airplane endured 40 years of neglect on the Greenland ice cap and was returned to Rockford in 1969, only to wind up in Florida. The plane was returned to Rockford in 1975, restored by Rock Valley College and AeroCraft in Naperville and went on display in 1988 at Midway Village Museum.

Visit relatives in Crystal Lake, Illinois

recent addition to family room

Dinner at Lou Malnati's for Chicago Style Pizza