near death on Lake Shore Drive

a brief (brief as I can be) recounting of last weekend's journey to Chicago with Brandon and Jenny....

Thursday August 11: we left Perrysburg about 9:30 and headed off for Chicago....stopped in South Bend, IN for pizza at the Pizza King
-got into the Windy City around 1 and decided to check out the Adler Planetarium which none of us had ever been to before. It's next to the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium which I've seen half a dozen times. It was pretty cool...except that it POURED on us while we walked to the building, so 20 mins of being absolutely soaked to the bone. Then we had to go straight into the air conditioned theater for the lame show we paid for. Excruciating! It took most of the visit to dry off. It was all good though...Jen got her astronaut ice cream that I had to mail order last time.
-then drove with surprising ease to the hotel, a Days Inn right across from the Lincoln Park Zoo. The two double room we reserved they didn't have so we got put in an executive suite with a king a pullout sofa, great view and 2 bathrooms! Very nice...though no Hotel 71.
-Chief and I went walking through some posh North Chicago neighborhoods in a vain search for an El station...very cool walk with lots of "scenery" (and the views were good too) but it took an hour to get there and back..a consistent theme of the two days...pointless walking
-more pointless walking on our way to find a different El station to get to Wrigleyville so I could see the bar I wanted to go to...Goose Island Wrigleyville. Very cool pub with great food and some of my favorite beer around. Tried the sampler because I can only get a couple of their beers in Toledo. My favorite was the Ryno (named in honor of recent HOFer Ryne Sandberg)..Jen and Brandon liked it alot too...I teased Chief cause the Cardinal fan drank a beer named after a Cub. The bar was kinda lame though...they stopped serving food before 10 and they said last call before 11...on a Thursday night!!! Not sure about that.
-stumbled back to the El and the hotel

Friday August 12: got up, got ready with all my Cubs gear....decided to check out the Lincoln Park Zoo across the street for all of 20 mins...but hell it was free. Got to see camels, apes, and weird gazelle things.
-the set off with everything we needed for a 20 min walk south the what we finally discovered was the closest El station to Wrigley...everything we needed except for the tickets to the game in my trunk. Of course we had paid for the El ride and were on the platform before I remembered them....Jenny and Brandon thought I was kidding, even after I started back up the steps for the street. Walked back while they laughed at me and I raged at myself. Took a cab to get to Wrigley. so $1.75 for the El ride for three people and $15 for the taxi just to go 2 miles to the game. I'm an idiot.
-the game was unbelievably great!! (except the Cards and Chief) the Cubs won 4-1 behind brilliant pitching by Carlos Zambrano, Kerry Wood, and Ryan Dempster and 2 runs (including an HR) by Michael Barrett...Jen's new favorite player. She even bought a Barrett jersey tshirt. Lots of fun had by all....except the Cardinal fans I guess..but who cares? The Cubs finally won in person for me after three loses.
-after the game we took the El (luckily the station is right behind the ballpark) downtown to eat at the Rainforest Cafe like Brandon wanted to. Pretty good meal and we got glasses that light up like strob lights that I intend to drink beer out of at Chach's.
-then walked a few blocks to get sundaes at Ghirardelli chocolate shop cause Jenny and Chief are obsessed with sundaes all of the sudden. But they were good.
-we then took the El back to near our hotel, walked back to the car, paid $25 for parking....and then the real adventure began.

-we got lost a couple of times trying to get back on Lake Shore Drive south out of the city...though there are apparently several Lake Shore Drives in the same small area and we had to turn around several times. taxi almost hit us..And yes I did turn left into apparently on-coming traffic, narrowly missing having an SUV where Jenny was sitting next to me...BUT I am positive I had a left turn arrow and I just followed the guy in front of me...but yes I almost killed my gf...my bad.
Side Note: this is where Jenny would make fun of my navigational skills ("I went on a little jaunt to chicago with my boy and his brother....which further showed me his lack of navigational skills.
but hey- he tries." for instance) and yes I am willing to admit my ineptitude when we went to Chitown in March....but here I was driving!! its the passenger seat's job to navigate, not the driver....especially when the driver has much less real city driving experience than the passenger!!!! of course Brandon helped alot by sitting quietly in the back....tool
-after missing another exit (driver's fault or map girl's?) finally got out of the city but had to take a lovely, scenic, hilarious, harrowing detour through South Chicago...the only white people in miles.

All in all a great, amazing trip to Chicago with two of my favorite people! thanks guys. Sorry this wasn't even in the same solar system as brief....speaking of which, Jenny, got any more astronaut ice cream?