We started out by sleeping in until about 9:00 a.m. or so which, for me, is pretty late. Isn't it nice to start out well-rested? We left at about 11:00 a.m. after having a leisurely breakfast and bumming around a little. We're only three hours from Chicago and the show started at 10:00 p.m. so we had obviously built some "wander" time into the schedule.
It was cloudy on the way to Chicago but only sprinkled on us a time or two - nothing too bad. We stopped at Pete's for lunch (by the way, mom and dad, they seem to have raised their prices quite a bit) where Shad and I both had burgers. I chose the blue cheese burger with fries started off by a cup of their creamy chicken and rice soup. The soup was definitely the best part of the meal and I had the opportunity to find out that hamburger with blue cheese crumbles isn't as flavorful as it might sound. It looked kinda pretty, though.
I don't know why the single fry was pointing at me from the safety of the bun, but I thought it was kinda rude.....don't worry, though, because I got my revenge. I ate it. With ketchup.
After lunch we got back on good ol' I-55 for a bit until we hit Joliet, which is home to one of my most favorite thrift stores.
Why hello random Unique Thrift Store shopper. How are you today?
The most unique thing about this thrift store for me is the fact that they don't have dressing rooms. You wanna try on some jeans or something? You find a big skirt, put that on, pull your best Houdini moves to de-pants without flashing the other patrons and then try on pants to your heart's content. I found a bag of vintage ribbons along with some elastic and a 14" zipper for like $3.99. Shad bought a seat for the canoe and a Halloween hat. Bonus!
It had been almost two hours since lunch and, since we didn't stuff ourselves, we decided to hunt down a little snack. Barnes and Noble seemed an excellent choice - not only do they usually have a Starbucks (complete with sweet, caffeined, icy goodness) but they have my other favorite splurge - lots o' books. Our GPS, after initially sending us on a wild goose chase onto a college campus, led us to our destination. Shad was saddened to learn that there was not an extensive music selection; however, I was more than pleased to see that they did have a little of this.....
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM........
That, my friends, is the Godiva double-chocolate cheesecake accompanied by some sort of icy coffee drink with bits of chocolate and whipped cream. It was absolutely as good as it looks. I honestly thought that this would be the highlight of my day.
We resumed our trip just as the sugar/caffeine high kicked in. I don't drink a lot, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, but I have to think that the overload of chocolate and coffee in my system was something like a first speed/meth hit. Whooo-eee. Luckily Shad was as hopped up as I was because I have the feeling that we were talking so fast and changing topics so rapidly that our conversation would sound like the drone of a mosquito to a normal person.
So that's where we were as we came into the city at about 6:00 p.m. After driving around for awhile we found a place to park that didn't cost $16 for the first hour and took off on foot. We wandered a few blocks in each direction, passing some fairly photo-friendly locations.
*Ribbit*
View from the super-swanky (for a) McDonald's downtown - yes, that is a glass table and I was sitting in a leather chair when I took this.
I love the mural on the side of this club.
Ah one, ah two, ah...."Take - me out to the ball - game..."
I feel like this is getting too long already and I've got more pictures from HOB, so I think I'm going to wrap this up right now and come back tomorrow to finish up the day. See, now you have something to look forward to! (That, of course, assumes that you read this post almost immediately after I post it and then have to wait - no doubt on pins and needles - for tomorrow's installment. If this post and tomorrow's follow-up post are both up when you read this one, feel free to walk away from your computer for a while to heighten the sense of anticipation........)
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