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Wednesday, Jul. 24, 2002 - 1:15 p.m.

Hancock. Han[d]-cock. Snort

NOTE: Here you go
It's Part Eight
Just so you know
It's really great.
As I continually stress, to start at the beginning, go here.

Tuesday, July 9, we wake up around 8:30 to shower and have breakfast and be on the road by 10. It turns out to be the worst weather day of the entire trip, and only because it's a cooler, cloudy day. As we near Chicago, the clouds are lower -- essentially fog -- and the skyline is barely visible. We run into traffic on the expressway and then wind our way through the Chicago streets to our hotel -- the Palmer House Hilton. The only problem with it is that the parking garage is a public one across Wabash, so we have to lug all our stuff back over to the hotel, since we park first, rather than stopping to unload. But we?re able to check in right away and we get a few things organized and take pictures for Jim, who's given us Hilton Honors points to stay here for free for three nights, before beginning our Windy City exploits.

We start with the Art Institute because it's Tuesday, and it's free on Tuesdays. There is an exhibit on trains and train stations built or renovated in the last decade and into the future, including a model and diagrams of the renovation of New York's Penn Station, which will be bigger and more open (with sunlight streaming in) when it expands to the current post office building across Eighth Avenue by 2008. There was also an exhibit of Gerhard Richter's painting, quite an interesting style (click on "Special Exhibitions" on that Art Institute link).

After seeing all the requisite works of famous art, we -- I'm actually not sure. It's been two weeks since we were there, and since I didn't write out nightly accounts of our activities, I'm doing this mostly off of memory and the few notes I wrote down in my notebook. That's precisely why I'm on the couch updating today (July 24) instead of outside. I'll get out tomorrow. Or Friday. Really. So, anyway, I cheated and peeked at Casey's diary to see what we did after the Art Institute because I thought we might've gone up to the Magnificent Mile, I wasn't sure. But yes, we did.

So, back to Chicago now, we hop on the El to North Michigan and get sammiches at Fat Sammie's. Well, Casey gets a sammich; I get a flat pizza, which is tasty. Then we walk over to the Water Tower to see the photo exhibit of baseball fan photos from Comiskey and Wrigley on the last day of the display. Looking in through the windows the next day, I see the sad, empty walls. In our quest to find me a bigger, better case for my toothbrush, toothpaste, razor shaving cream, etc. (collectively known as toiletries), we go into the Water Tower Place mall but they don't have an Eddie Bauer. So we stroll down Michigan to Eddie Bauer and I buy one, which turns out to be too small for my liking once I get it back to the hotel and try to put my things in it. I'll exchange it later.

It's such a foggy day in Chicago that even the mid-sized skyscrapers have their peaks obscured by the clouds. Downtown, the Sears Tower looked tiny; here the Hancock is a stump. (Later on the trip, but I remember it now so I'm writing it here, I wonder why I've never, ever, heard a joke about "Hancock." It's so EASY! Maybe that's why.)

Finding a Williams-Sonoma, we buy the margarita salt and mix to complete Brad and Tenille's gift (which includes margarita glasses) and make one final stop at some place I'd never heard of -- Adventure Expeditions or some such name -- and I give in and buy some flip-flops. I haven't worn them since I was maybe 6, but I'm desperately in need of some sort of sandals, and since it's mid-July and they're only 20 bucks, I go with them over the more expensive, but potentially more useful Teva-style ones.

Then, our purchases in hand (and the margarita mix gets heavier the more blocks we walk), it's back to the hotel. To nap. And clean up.

Rested and refreshed, we board the El northward again for Rudi Fazuli's and, my God, it's good. Of course, I eat too much bread, but that's really yummy too, with the butter and the olive oil and pepper. But I make a good dent in my pasta, though there's still a lot left. After dinner, we head over to Southport Lanes and order some beers and await Erin and Molly. Casey orders a Summit Hefe-Weizen, one of her favorites to which she had forgotten the name. Now she's determined to remember it. I have a Sierra Nevada, something I haven't had on tap in a while.

It's the night of the baseball All-Star Game, so we watch that on TV and I give Casey a little uniform history lesson, along with some of the team names, and although the sound is off, one of the monitors has closed captioning, so I can read what the announcers are saying. Then the game ends in a tie, and it all seems so ridiculous to me.

Erin and Molly arrive and we move to a booth for only a short catch-up chat. They're tired, having worked all day, and Casey and I soon start yawning too, the result of an active day. We leave without me seeing the bowling alleys, but that's OK. I did go upstairs to the bathrooms which, as Casey accurately described, "look like they're in someone's house."

Then it's back to the Palmer House -- in our only cab ride -- and our king-size bed.

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