NOTE: OH-K, sorry for the delay. Here�s Part NINE! Of the trip. I swear I�ll try to have this finished by Sunday night. Really. I swear. To start at the beginning, go here.

Weird dreams in king size Palmer House bed (written moments after waking up) � At the all-star game in Lakewood, Bryan is pitching. Bryan, the former college roommate with little to no baseball skills. He throws one strike to the first batter, then four balls to walk him. After one ball to the next, he strikes him out with three more pitches and I try to get my dinner in the picnic area, but Matt�s mom Sue throws it away when I put it down for a second to get a drink. Then Uncle Chic and Aunt Donna dance at the bottom of the hill on the outfield berm.

I have another, but it�s forgotten.

On our first full day in Chicago (we�re talking Wednesday, July 10 here), we sleep in a bit after being up late the night before. Some people are all, Let�s GO! when on vacation, thinking that they have to fill every minute of the business day (and weekends) with Fun Activities just because you�re On Vacation. I can � stress can be one of those people. There are times when I�m like, Who knows when I�ll be here again? Let�s do this. At other times, I�d rather take a break, slow down for a few hours, catch up and recharge myself.

So sleeping in is good. We don�t get out of bed until after 10:30, maybe after 11. We shower and get dressed and plan the day. First, it�s off to Gino�s East for famous Chicago deep dish pizza. I�ve been to one once, with Bryan and Jess senior year when we drove up from South Bend on a Friday night in December to see the Chicago Christmas displays and write �I HATE THE BULLS� in White-Out on our booth (well, I did that). But Casey�s thinking of a different one, up on Rush, I believe, so we take the El up that-a-way and exit onto the street in another fine Chicago afternoon. It�s sunny, but not hot. Warm. Pleasant. We walk.

In the wrong direction. Like eight blocks. When we�d stepped off the train, Casey took a few steps in one direction, stopped, and decided it was not the right way. So we turned around and headed in the other direction. Normally, I�m good with directions, but 1) I didn�t know where we were going, so even if I knew where we were (and which way was East), I would�ve been of no help. And 2) I couldn�t tell where the lake was, or the Sears Tower, or any kind of landmark that would tell me North, East, South or West. So I put my trust in her directional ability and flip-flop off beside her.

Yes, see, I�m wearing my new sandals, the ones I bought for a cheap alternative to my sneakers, which I would otherwise wear 28 days out of every month, if not more. I rarely dress up for work unless it�s a special event outside the office. And working nights, I rarely have the opportunity to dress up for a nice dinner, a night on the town, ANYTHING.

Sorry -- missing the point here. So as we reach one intersection, Casey stops. �Uh ...� she says. �I don�t know where we are.� I don�t, either, but she soon realizes her mistake and I file it away for future use, considering that, according to male-female stereotypes, she�s already built a database of dozens of far lesser transgressions on my part. But I restrain myself and do not bring it up as we get situated and trod off in the right direction.

Finally we�re counting down the blocks, knowing that our Gino�s is drawing ever closer. At one intersection, we cross to the east side of the avenue (I have my bearings now), but pick the wrong side of the street and need to cross back and walk a few doors north to Gino�s. We�re standing in the warm mid-day sunshine, looking across at the restaurant while awaiting the OK to cross, the Walking Man. Finally, we get the green. We flip-flop-flip-flop through the intersection and reach the red and white Gino�s awning and are about to reach out to open the door when we see the handwritten sign on the white piece of paper on the door: �Closed for renovations. Sorry for the inconvenience.�

Again, I restrain myself and decide not to mention anything about having to walk 16 blocks to get here.

�Well, what do you want to do now?� Casey asks, and at this point I just want to eat.

�Johnny Rockets,� I say, looking one block down the street. �It�ll be quick and it looks open.�

As we take our seat at the counter, Casey makes a comment about how we�re eating in a chain restaurant (with locations nearby in Hoboken and Jersey Gardens mall) in a city with such great restaurant options. But then she adds, �But I need something,� and we�re heartily satisfied with our lunch in half an hour.

Now we�re able to get on with our day. First it�s over to the Museum of Contemporary Art to use the two-for-one admission pass we picked up at the Art Institute to see the Andreas Gursky exhibit of his very large photographs. It�s cool stuff. There�s also a replica of a large skeleton, like that of a dinosaur, in the lobby. Only it�s a gigantic interpretation of the skeleton of Felix the Cat. It�s amusing. We walk around through the rest of the museum as well and sit by the koi pond in the basement. After a stroll through the gift shop, we walk back outside and figure out how to get to Navy Pier. One of the bored workers at the information desk at Fat Sammie�s gives us a map of the free trolley system and explains how to get there from here, which is to say, there, which is where we were.

The trolleys are nice � when you get a seat on one that�s not too crowded with an open window. Soon we�re rolling onto Navy Pier and get off at the last stop near the end of the pier. I simply wanted to walk around, maybe take some photos of the happenings. When I visited Casey in August 2001, only our second meeting since her first visit to New Jersey, we strolled along the pier on a Saturday evening when there were bands and it looked like just a nice place to hang out. On a Wednesday afternoon, it�s not quite the same. Casey didn�t feel like a beer, either, and I wasn�t in the mood for just a beer (but, rather, for a beer with a friend and a beer), so we wander aimlessly for a little while before getting back on a trolley, this time taking one that lets us off near the Art Institute and our hotel.

One of the few truly Chicago things that I had never really visited (in addition to the Sears Tower, which continues to hold that title) is Buckingham Fountain. My goal for the Chicago stay was to get some photographs of it at night, all lit up with the city skyline behind it. I already have a nice shot of the skyline from across the lake out by Adler Planetarium, in addition to the Niagara Falls light show and other various nighttime skyline pictures. It makes me feel like more of an accomplished amateur photographer than simply a tourist with a camera. That, and I like the way they turn out.

So we walk over to the fountain (and the supposed start of historic Route 66, I�d heard) and walk around it in the late afternoon. A sign explains how the big main jet shoots off for 20 minutes each hour (or whatever the timetable is) and that the light show runs from 9-11 p.m. in the summer. So we plan to be back by 11 p.m., if we can.

Walking back we pass blue trees in Grant Park, but we can�t explain them.

At a store along Michigan Avenue near the Art Institute, we see ceramic cows in the windows and have to walk in. They�re replicas of the �Cows On Parade� exhibit that Chicago hosted in Summer 2000 � all kinds of life-sized cows sculpted and painted in various themes were placed throughout the city. The same display did not go over as well in New York, where many of the cows were vandalized. Earlier in the day, just outside Johnny Rockets, we had seen the lady bug cow, still hanging two stories above the street on a building.

It�s the Mexican-themed one � the �Moo-riachi� cow � that draws our attention and we decide to buy it for Moom. And to get another one for Jim and Carol and their kitchen. I buy a big, thick, heavy book of color glossy photos taken from the air around the world on every day of the year. It�s like a coffeetable calendar/book. Each two-page spread is a photo and description with the date on it. No year or day of the week, so it can serve as a sort of calendar for ever and ever.

Turning back onto Jefferson or Madison or whatever presidential street runs east right to the Art Institute�s front steps, I see posted on a lamp post high above the sidewalk and the tables outside Au Bon Pain a brown sign with the familiar shield of the U.S. highway system that reads, BEGIN � HISTORIC ROUTE 66. Casey takes a picture which, because of the flash reflecting off the sign, makes it look heavenly when we get the prints back.

I think this is the night we stop in at the Berghoff for some drinks, but I�m not sure. It�s not that big a deal: at around 4:30 either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, we stop in the Berghoff for some drinks. Then back to the nice hotel. End of story.

Dinner tonight is at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba and I spend most of the night on the patio trying remember the name and the exact placement of the dashes and just how many �Ba�s there are, anyway. And then I get �Ba, Ba Black Sheep� stuck in my head. We eat tapas and they are good.

We decide to make it an early night and get back on the El down to the Loop and hoof it back over to Buckingham. We approach from the north, meaning we have to walk around it so I can get the photos with the skyline in the background. The lights are lit and it�s a nice sight, with the jets spraying water and the mist floating over the gravel. There are plenty of other people and a few other photographers with tripods set up (and plenty using their point-and-shoots with the flash). We walk around the fountain and I pick my spot and set up the tripod and mount the camera and compose the shot and set the exposure and aperture and put the timer on so as not to shake the camera when I push down on the shutter release and push the shutter release to take the picture � and the lights turn off. It�s just after 10:30, maybe 10:40; absolutely no later than 10:45. In reality, the lights went off a split second � maybe the exact second � I pressed the button to shoot the picture. So I get a 30-second exposure (or however long, I didn�t even bother to write it down) of a dark fountain and the skyline behind it. On top of it all, through the entire length of the exposure, the wind on this side of the fountain is whipping off the lake, actually shaking my camera despite my attempts to stand on the windward side of it in an attempt to break it. The wind. Break the wind. Heh.

So yeah, the sign said that the light show went from 9-11 p.m. It might�ve even said 7-11, but it�s still pretty light out at 7, so that seems unlikely. Now, this website says the light shows start every hour on the hour and last about 20 minutes. But if that�s the case, then the sign at the fountain should say from 9-10:30 p.m. Or it should be as thorough as this site. Whatever the case, they�re both wrong, because the lights were definitely on past 10:30 (website�s wrong) and they definitely went off before 11 (park signs are wrong).

Cheated and dejected, I take one shot of the Sears Tower, but that too comes out more blured than it should because of the wind, so we pack it up and head back to the hotel with our Key to Millions. I haven�t mentioned that yet, have I? I�d forgotten. But yeah, our room keycards said, �Your key to millions� across them, so rather than saying, �Have you got your room key?� each time we went out or came home, Casey and I would ask, �Have you got your Key to Millions?� But we�re not British, so we probably really phrased it, �Do you have your Key to Millions?� But whatever.

Damn Key to Millions couldn�t buy us 15 more minutes of light at Buckingham Fountain.