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The Chicago trip went pretty darn well. We didn’t see all that we had hoped to see due to adventure-related time constraints, but we’re already contemplating a trip back in the early summer, so that should take care of that little problem.

What? You wanted more detail? Fine…

We left a little later than I was hoping for on Friday (around noonish), but since it was mostly because Amanda was fighting her way through a migraine I can’t complain too much (or at least, complain too much and keep my girlfriend). The drive out wasn’t too bad. The only real snag was we hit Chicago right at rush hour, so there was some sloooow going for a while. It would have been worse, but it seems the majority of the traffic is trying to leave the city around that time. Go figure.

We checked into the hotel without any problem. And the room was very pretty! Almost exactly as the pictures made it out to be. We had a king-size bed in a wheelchair accessible room (read: no tub but a giant bathroom/shower) on the 8th floor. Very nice all around.

We spent our first night walking around Evanston a bit, getting a feel for the local scene. We had dinner at a place called Bar Louie. I had a ~really~ nice blue cheese bacon cheeseburger cooked just the way I like it. Go them. After dinner, we walked around a bit more before heading back to the hotel. We hung out in the Indigo Lounge for a couple of hours and had a couple of too-expensive drinks, then turned in.

Saturday was adventure-filled. Well, Saturday contained an adventure, at any rate. We took the train into the city, but I discovered all too late that the system wasn’t quite as simple as I thought it’d be. According to the map/schedule I looked up right before we left, we had to transfer trains at the north end of downtown from the Red line to the Green line at State in order to get to the Art Institute. So we got off the red line at Chicago/State. Only then did we discover that there was more than one stop under State street (we were in the subway). So we waited for the next train and continued south into the city a bit. After ten minutes and six stops on the train, we decided we must’ve gone too far somehow. So we got off, studied the map in the subway (we were looking for State/Lake, according to the map), and caught a train going the other way. And then we almost missed the stop a THIRD time because they only announced it as Lake. They left off the State part entirely (never mind the fact they only call it State online).

So we were at Lake, but we couldn’t figure out how to transfer. It wasn’t particularly obvious. There were no “board Green line here” signs. Eventually, we figured out that while the Red line was a subway at this stop, the Green line was an elevated train. So we had to leave the subway, go around the corner, and take a flight of stairs to get to the green line. And then when we did, we discovered there were two freaking Green lines, and we didn’t know which we wanted. After watching both go by, (as well as two Orange and two Pink line trains in between) we decided we wanted the second one, so we grabbed it when we made another pass. We finally made it to our stop, only to discover that the Orange and Pink trains stopped there as well. Sigh. All told, our supposed 45-minute ride into the city took nearly 2 hours, which pretty well decided for us that we weren’t going to hit more than one museum. And Amanda’s bladder was very nearly a casualty of war, I think. However, we ~did~ get to spend nearly four hours walking around the Art Institute, which was a lot of fun. I saw all sorts of cool stuff I didn’t get a chance to see on my last pass through in March of 2001.

After the museum, we walked around Millennium Park (Amanda wanted to visit the giant bean… see above) and the surrounding downtown area a bit. Then we saw via Doppler that it was going to start snowing any minute, so we caught a train back to Evanston.

And boy was it snowing/sleeting/blowing hard when we got there! The walk back to the hotel hurt something fierce, even though we only had a block and a half to go. And then what did we do? We decided we needed to go try a brand new sushi place we’d saw the night before as we were leaving Bar Louie. So we looked up Louis’ location on a map, put on our brave faces, and headed back out.

Turns out the map sent us in the completely wrong direction (NW instead of SE), so we spent waaay too much time out in the elements. But when we got there, we got a table despite not having reservations, and OMFUG! The sushi was fantastic! If you’re ever in Evanston and have a taste for sushi, do yourself a favor and check out Kansaku (located here, despite what other maps may say). They had great food, decent prices, and friendly staff. We tried the eel, salmon, and tuna. All verrah good.

Then we headed back to the hotel to the Globe Café and got trashed. Really trashed. We bought two pitchers of Goose Island Honker’s Ale, and it was slow enough that the bartender also gave us a couple of really high quality Long Island Iced Teas on the house. It was awesome, but more than enough alcohol. ;)

The next morning we woke late (but relatively hangover-free), walked around the Northwestern University campus, got breakfast, and headed home. The drive back was an adventure in itself. It started snowing about half an hour outside of the city and kept going fairly well the entire way back. The closer we got to Des Moines, the worse the roads got. We counted 32 cars in the ditch on the way, though it’s a safe bet we missed a few. #26 was by far the most exciting. We were in the left lane, passing a MidAmerican Energy truck, when the truck suddenly lost control, slid right across our path (I hit the brakes as fiercely and delicately as I could), and ended up in the median beside us. That got the adrenaline pumping, lemme tell you.

So that was the Chicago trip, in 1,200 words or less. I made exciting purchases today I wanna share about, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Amanda’s coming over and we’re going to make salmon for dinner. Nummy.