The third Pied Piper Architectural Walking Tour of 2009 took us around the Illinois State Capitol campus. [More]

Hello August! There's nothing like a combination of great weather and busy days at work to detract a blogger from his blog. I have some things coming up that I wanted to post a quick note about: Downtown Springfield, Inc's Pied Piper Architectural Tour number four is today at 5:30 PM, meeting at the Old State Capitol. I attended last month's tour of the Illinois State Capitol complex, but never got around to posting an entry for it (UPDATE: check it out here). I plan to go to today's event, so maybe I'll make the post a double feature. I  bought a new (used, technically) car recently and wanted to share with you, Internet, some of the things I learned during the process. Spoiler: overall, the experience wasn't entirely terrible!

This weekend, there was only one place in Springfield where you could stuff yourself with food from a dozen restaurants, all within one city block. That would be the 2009 Taste of Downtown. This year's Taste of Downtown, organized by Downtown Springfield Inc., coincided with this year's Fourth of July and Abraham Lincoln bicentennial celebrations. For those of you who have never attended, the Taste of Downtown brings together various restaurants from the downtown area on the block of Fifth Street between Washington and Adams streets. While there, you can sample cuisine from each of these restaurants for about $4 to $5 each. Certain streets downtown are blocked off during the event, so you may have to drive around a bit to find some parking. Luckily, Downtown Springfield provided a map (PDF) of this year's layout. Upon arrival, make your way to one of the tents labeled 'Tickets.' Here, you can buy food tickets (one ticket per dollar) and get wristbands for those older than 21 who wish to drink alcoholic be... [More]

The second Pied Piper downtown Springfield tour, focusing on the Old State Capitol square. [More]

The Springfield Upper Story Tour is an annual event in Springfield Illinois where downtown businesses and residences open the doors of their upper stories for the public to see. [More]

5/21/09 UPDATE: I've updated the article with some information provided by our tour guide, Anthony Rubano. Additions are in blue. Other additions have been added in the picture captions. Thanks Anthony! If you've lived in Springfield for any amount of time, you've surely come to find yourself wanting something to do, but don't have any idea as to what it could be. You end up blaming Springfield for being sleepy and boring?I won't argue against that too much, but, there actually is stuff going on around town. You just need to look for it. Full disclosure: I wouldn't have known about it had it not been for the gf. Case in point: On Wednesday, I found myself looking at downtown Springfield in a whole new way. I attended 2009's first Springfield Pied Piper Architectural Walking Tour. The Pied Piper tour is a free event sponsored by Downtown Springfield and hosted by Anthony Rubano of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. It's a walking tour that meets in front of the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices at the... [More]