Chicago Trip

Last week Jon announced to his carpool that he had not seen everything in Chicago that he wanted to. He and our friend Nathan decided that we would make a road trip the following weekend (and then promptly forgot to tell their wives). As I am unemployed, last minute plans make no difference to me. Nathan's lovely wife, Mindy, however, wasn't able to get work off on such short notice. To avoid feeling like a third wheel, Nathan invited another friend, Nate, to come with us too. So, Saturday morning at 7 am, I and three boys loaded into our fabulous gold Taurus for the 3 hour trip.

Nathan had spent quite a bit of time in Chicago and was an excellent tour guide. In fact, he had our entire day planned out before we even left. Our first stop was Half Price books--an extremely dangerous place for me. I grabbed two $1 novels and Jon bought 4 or 5 Dilbert books. We then had a fabulous breakfast at a local restaurant famous for their gigantic apple pancakes. It took both Nathan and Jon to finish one of those suckers off.

I loved the beach on Michigan lake that we stopped at. It amazes me how blue the water is. After living near the Mississippi for so long I just assume that all water sources are going to be brown and stinky. We also stopped at the Baha'i temple, which had some sweet architecture.

For lunch we had reservations at the Signature Room (95th floor)of the Hancock Tower. The view was amazing, but my lobster bisque was nasty. I could smell it coming from across the room.

The rest of the day we spent just walking around the city looking at various interesting sites. The Tribune building was pretty cool--it has pieces of stone from places all over the world placed in its walls. That evening we watched a free performance by Midnight Circus, a local acrobatic group. I was actually quite impressed--one of the girls did things I've never seen done before on a tight walk. Unfortunately, we ended up standing too close behind a homeless man, and when the wind shifted I almost passed out.

Right before we left we had some fun taking pictures at the Cloudgate sculpture, otherwise known as The Bean. Its surface is a giant mirror designed to reflect the skyline. We were more interested in our own reflections.

The three hour drive home was pretty miserable. There is absolutely nothing to see, especially at night. We got to our neighborhood just in time to have a policeman ask Nathan if he'd heard the gunfire reported in our neighborhood. I found this quite amusing. Here we are, fresh from Chicago where we'd seen nothing more scandalous than a drug deal, and then we come back to little Davenport and THEN we hear about gunfire.

Now it's back to getting ready to move. The movers come on Thursday to pack us up. That's right--we don't have to pack a dang thing. So why am I so stressed out that I'm getting sick? No idea. Hey, at least being sick means that Jon will take me out to eat. He'd rather pay than cook himself. Me too, but I don't have that option, darn it.