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chicago and trish I fell asleep at one in the morning for what I like to call a power nap and then got back up at four in the morning to start the day. After showering and eating a quick breakfast I was on the road to Chicago. The drive itself is only an hour and a half to the south, but I wanted to beat as much of the morning rush hour as possible. Besides I always get a little nervous when I am going somewhere that I have never been to before and that was the case today. Wait. Let me rephrase that last sentence. I've been to downtown Chicago before, but the suburbs which was my first destination of the day are still a mystery to me. In my panic to make sure I knew where I was going, I got to my destination an hour and a half early. So rather than waking Trish up that early, I hung out at a local McDonalds. Of course hanging out at McDonalds does lose its appeal and I ended up waking Trish a half hour early anyway. So then after getting reacquainted and listening to Scott reset the snooze alarm for over an hour, Trish and I were on our way with our first priority being food. Since neither of us knew the area very well we headed to a mall in search of food. Of course we got there just as the food court was opening and that limited our selection. Trish saw fit to augment our fast food breakfast with a mixed bag of Jelly Belly candies. Personally I am not fond of tasting popcorn in a candy, but Trish seems to like it. I prefer fruit flavors myself. Our next stop was downtown Chicago, but here is where I made my first driving mistake of the day. One would think that I could hit a major city with my car, but I missed the closest onramp to the tollway and ended up heading south through the suburbs before I came back up Lake Shore Drive. I guess that in the end it all worked out for the best because Michigan Avenue in front of the museum was all tore up due to construction. I should have guessed that there would be construction in the city since I didn't run into any on my way down from Milwaukee. Almost every time that I have driven to Chicago, I have run into major amounts of construction, but this time it had to be a little different. Once I was downtown I didn't have any problems knowing where to go. I knew where there was parking and we were right next to the museum. All that we had to do was walk one block. I like to think that this made up for the scenic route that I took into the city. This was the first time in five years that I had been to the museum and a few things had changed. The two that I noticed the most was they had finished the garden outside the front of the museum and added a new Asian art section inside. I am sure that there were other changes, but we didn't get around to seeing everything. Actually I think that is more of an all day or multiple day event. After leaving the museum we made our way up Michigan Avenue popping in and out of stores to avoid the wind and gawk. Being the charming host that I am, I pointed out various things that I thought that Trish needed. She didn't seem to appreciate some of my suggestions though and went home empty handed. Soon our time was running out and we made one final stop to eat some deep dish pizza before she had to leave for her flight. Then as we made our way back to the car, there was the small matter of her hands being cold. Ahem. I think that I should mention that it was not that cold. In fact it was rather mild, but Trish will disagree. Unfortunately the journey out of the city was just as awkward as the one that I had made into the city. Once again I missed another exit for the tollway that I wanted and ended up creeping through the city at rush hour. At least I had my atlas along with me in the car. Without that I am sure that it would have taken even longer to get where we wanted to go. Despite the two scenic drives through the city, it was a fun day. I hadn't seen Trish since we first met in California a little over a year ago and it was good to see her again. At that time we had gone to Yosemite, so Chicago was a nice contrast to that trip. Maybe next time we'll explore the fair city of Milwaukee and its many wonders or something along those lines.
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