Back home from Chicago

On Monday Rick and I took the train West to the Chicago suburb of St. Charles to visit Rick’s parents. We visited and looked at boxes of pictures from Rick’s childhood. My favorite was a picture of Rick during his potty training days, sitting stark naked on the potty, grinning and covering his privates with an empty Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head as a hat! Rick’s mom and dad kindly gave it to me to keep for blackmail. We all went out for a fabulous king crab dinner that night. I’ve never seen crab legs that big! So yummy.

On Tuesday, we caught a Cubs game with Rick’s dad. The scene outside Wrigley Field was like a huge party and sitting in the bleachers was even better. The weather was great and the Cubs kicked butt. Wrigley Field is amazing. Afterwards, Rick’s dad took us out for some ribs at Carson’s in downtown. The restaurant was very cool and old-school and the ribs were delicious. Wednesday, we headed back out to the suburbs to hang out with Rick’s childhood friend, his wife and son. We barbecued and shot some hoops and talked Warcraft.

On Thursday, we went to the Sears tower and had lunch with Rick’s Uncle Bill at a very cool restaurant in the lobby of a building downtown, one block South of the Sears tower. The lobby had a glass ceiling and a gorgeous fountain. It felt like an atrium. That night was a taping of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, one of my favorite NPR programs. They had a new panelist, Drew Carey, who was very funny. Moby was their special guest and, unlike most previous guests, showed up in person instead of calling in! Unfortunately none of my pictures turned out - the theater was too dark

On Friday we checked out the Art Institute which was AMAZING. They had a special exhibition of Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer that blew my mind. I wasn’t familiar with Hopper’s work beyond his iconic Nighthawks painting and the rest of his work really moved me. The style reminded me of Magritte’s work - although there were no surrealist elements, the style and composition made me feel that they were surrealist nonetheless. I especially loved one of his last paintings, Sun in an Empty Room. That night, Rick’s Uncle Bill took us out for ribs at Twin Anchors and they were the best ribs I’ve ever had in my life. The meat was so tender that it was difficult to eat - it just slipped off the bone!

Saturday was our day of departure and we had breakfast at Wishbone, a southern-style eatery near Oprah’s taping studio. Their salmon cakes with hollandaise blew my mind and the decor was very fun and cheerful. Afterwards, we went to O’Hare to check in where (surprise, surprise) my bag was way overweight. We had to wait half an hour to check-in with an agent because their check-in machines weren’t working for us and in the end, our flight was delayed by half an hour. I was worried we wouldn’t make our connecting flight because we landed with 10 minutes to get to the next gate. Luckily, we caught a ride on one of those electric cart things and made our flight.

In the end, I had tons of fun. Chicago is a great town (when the weather’s good) and I definitely want to go back to check out the museums we missed. However, I’m not too happy with the extra 10 pounds I brought back with me. Time to get back to my running program, eating veggies and working.

More pictures here