Chicago

For the past couple of weeks, Nancy's son, Steve, has been working in Texas and Arkansas. He is employed by a land surveying company that is based in Michigan, but has contracts all over the U.S. When he flew off to Dallas, he brought clothes with him appropriate for working outdoors in southern weather. To his surprise, Steve was informed last Thursday that he was needed at a job site in Wisconsin on Sunday. Yes, Wisconsin. Land of cheese and cold.

Since Steve would be driving a company vehicle from Texas to Wisconsin, he would be passing through Illinois. Nancy and I came up with the idea to rendezvous with Steve west of Chicago to pass on his much-needed winter surveying clothing to him. How nice of us, right? Our ulterior motive, however, was to spend the weekend shopping and playing tourist in the Windy City. We did just that.

When we arrived in town, Jacob, Nancy, and I stopped at the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) and spent an hour or so at the Skydeck on the 103rd floor. The weather could not have been more cooperative and we could see for what seemed like forever. We ate lunch there, then headed to the "Magnificent Mile" to shop. I cannot remember ever seeing so many pedestrians out and about in freezing cold temperatures happily walking around their city. The downtown Christmas decorations were beautiful and the atmosphere was indeed festive. By the time we were done shopping, it was evening so Jacob, Nancy, and I jumped back into the car to drive to our suburban hotel. Apparently, many of those other holiday shoppers decided to depart the city at the same time because the freeways were at a total standstill. Armed with a map of Chicagoland (that is what the locals call the area, I did not just make that up), the three of us successfully maneuvered our way 30 miles from Lake Michigan to the western suburb of Shaumburg via city streets. After checking into our hotel, we ventured out to purchase a carry-out pizza from the world-famous Uno. We completely stuffed ourselves, watched some TV, and fell asleep.

On Sunday morning, we were all up bright and early, and grabbed a quick breakfast from the hotel lobby. We had arranged to meet Steve in Rockford at 9:00 a.m. for the clothing hand-off and everything went well with that. Later, Jacob, Nancy, and I swung by the largest mall in Illinois - Woodfield Mall - and did a little more shopping. We were on the road again by 2:00 p.m. and back at the condo Sunday evening. What a great, impromptu weekend trip!