CHICAGO... and all that jazz!

Day 7 (July 12): We enjoyed a lovely last breakfast outside before saying goodbye to the Gouveias. We got on the road at 11:00am and drove for three hours. Just to say we've been there, we stopped for lunch in Kalamazoo. They have this fine eating establishment called McDonald's... go if you haven't been and ask for the #12. We drove for three more hours and arrived in Chicago at around 4:30pm.

Toll count: $4.75.

We checked in to the Best Western in the north end, which happened to be the food district. We went out to check out the pool and the view from the top of the building. Perfect location! We took a walk to the "Magnificent Mile" (or the "Miracle Mile" as Jeff regularly misnames it!), which is a long stretch of awesome shopping right downtown - just lovely!

We went to Ed Debevic's for dinner, where Jeff remembers the servers being dressed up as famous characters... what he forgot to mention was their serving style: mean! Dave would have loved it (Shaun, Rav and Steve might remember it from L.A.) when they throw the straws in the air and call your order a "stupid baby dish"! Had I known about this style, I could have been ready for it! (I tried to tell Ash she should wear the paper hat they give you so they don't harrass as much, but nooooo!)

We walked to the corner and found a blues bar called Chicago Blues, where we watched Shirley Johnson sing a couple of tunes. Thanks for the recommendation, Charlie! Bonnie, this was the lady on your shirt! We were quite tired after this full day, so we were back at the hotel around 10:00pm and fell into bed.

Day 8: After a great sleep in our king size bed, we were up and at'em around 7:30am. (Well, I was up, I don't know about at'em... especially pre-coffee!) We walked across the street to this tiny old restaurant called the Ohio House Motel. It had about 4 booths and 4 chairs at a counter. Jeff ordered the "Deuces Wild", which they have been serving since 1974! Good food and good service for a good price.

Our hotel was at a perfect spot, right near Stop #14 on the trolley tour. We bought our tickets and hopped on the bus around 10:30am. We sat on the top deck and stared in awe at all of the amazing buildings around downtown Chicago. The guide was awesome - lots of stats and dates, with just the right amount of Dad jokes! We hopped off at Millennium Park to visit "the bean" (actually named "Cloud Gate") a multi-tonne sculpture shaped like a bean but is built out of a mirror that reflects the city scape behind you when you take its picture. Unfortunately, we took our pics from the other side that reflected mostly sky and Lake Michigan. We followed that by strolling through the bandstand area and then picked up our free t-shirts and some postcards from the Trolley Co. headquarters.
We picked up the north neighborhood tour to go see Wrigley Field. It was quite uncomfortable sitting on the hard wood benches of the trolley, but the perfect weather made up for it! We were able to quickly hop off and get our picture in front of the Wrigley sign and back on the trolley, which saved us waiting 45 minutes for the next one.
We sped back along Lakeshore Drive (basically a 10-lane highway that runs north and south along Lake Michigan), hopped off and walked our way to the Garrett Popcorn Shop where our free sample bag of "The Mix" (cheese and caramel - a surprisingly delicious combination!) waited for us. This place was so popular people were buying gallons of corn at a time! Nearby was the Chicago sign in the theatre district, which was a must-stop for Velma (Ash).
We had a quick hotdog for lunch and then caught the double decker bus to the Navy Pier while all along being fed interesting facts from the guide and seeing things like Soldier Field (Da' Bears!), Shedd Aquarium and the fountain from the opening credits to the "Married With Children" TV show. Since time was running out, we quickly toured the pier and then got a good bird's eye view when we rode the ginormous ferris wheel (which, by the way, was invented in Chicago!).

We caught the bus back to the Hershey Factory (picked up our free chocolate bar!)...

... and stopped in at the John Hancock Observatory. Looking around the gift shop there (and every other gift shop in Chicago), it was almost as if the Blackhawks didn't exist! They are such huge baseball fans that Jeff said he had even forgotten about the Bulls! I asked one of the gift shop workers if that was all the Hawks stuff they had and he suggested we head to the Blackhawks store. WHAT?! An ENTIRE store dedicated to the Hawks??? As it was 5:30pm, we didn't want to risk them being closed, so we RAN the 12 blocks to the store! Fortunately, they didn't close until 6:00pm. It was so worth the sprint, just to see Jeff in his heaven.

And after all that, he bought.... another hat.

We walked the 12 blocks back to the Cheesecake Factory and picked up dessert for later. The brochure said the last trolley ride was at 6:00pm but luckily, we managed to catch the very last trip of the night, scheduled to end at Stop #14! Perfect!

We got back to the hotel just in time for The Bachelorette, but it was so cozy in that big bed that I fell asleep! Jeff tried to wake me up a few times and finally managed to get out of the hotel at 10:00pm to go find some deep dish pizza for dinner! Unfortunately, Gino's East (ranked very highly in the city) had just closed! We made our way back to the hotel restaurant and settled for their version. Not bad at all!

Back to the room around 11:30pm for dessert! Chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake. Enough said.