Home Sweet Home, Chicago

Four glorious days in a town not our own. We arrived to find a city just waking up and getting out to work. After dropping our luggage we headed to explore the city. On the way to Destination Unknown, we passed a fire station. Maddie and I peered in to count the fire trucks. A fireman looked at Maddie and asked her to wait there, he had something for her. After a few moments (almost long enough for me to consider popping in to make sure he hadn't forgotten us) he came out with a tiny teddy bear. We thanked him and his response was, "We really like the kids...it's the adults we're not so fond of." Well, welcome to Chicago!

After walking for some time, we arrived to the American Girl store. If you have never seen girls between the ages of 5 and 11 knock each other over for an item, go here, place bets and step back (you could get knocked down). There were girls leaving with 3 or 4 bags of items. One small bag would have been filled with items worth no less than a tank of gas (no matter what part of the country you live in.) We had to talk Maddie down from spending her college tuition and made it out without having to purchase another suitcase to get the items home. Side note, I went through Maddie's backpack and found the catalog. Apparently she is going to hold me to "if you really want that in 2 months then we'll order it." She is making lists and checking them twice.

With the American Girl store out of the way, we walked and walked and walked. I'm slightly directionally challenged but Justin seems to know where he is underground. I followed him and let him lead the way. This proved to be a perfect set up since we never once found ourselves in Indiana. The El and bus system served us well and we even helped a few other tourists find their way.

Sunday we took over the Field Museum and saw as much as three people can see in 8 hours. Some of the exhibits were the same when I was there in 1991. Some of the exhibits were new and worth the 15 year hiatus. We spent the evening in Chinatown and had tasty Vietnamese food. Then we were up at 4:30 to catch the early plane home so Maddie wouldn't miss school.

Now we're back to our regularly scheduled lives and I'm pining for the Chicago dogs and pizza.