The Book of Standage: The Windy City

I just blew in from the windy city
The windy city is mighty purty
But they ain't got what we got, no sirree

Calamity Jane

That song was stuck in my head the whole time we were in Chicago this weekend. We decided to go up for a few days "spring break" weekend (although Daniel had to work most of the week). We had a great time. I was able to catch up with one of my college roommates, and we were able to see lots of cool stuff, and attend the temple there.

Day 1: This photo pretty much sums up our day.

It was cold and rainy. We got soaked. We were lost. Daniel and I felt like awful parents and friends (especially because it was Josh's birthday, and my old roommate was hanging out with us). Kids were ornery (understandably). And it was just plain unpleasant!

We thought to save money and probably time, it would be good to ride the "L" (subway/elevated train. It was both!) downtown. We realized on the train that we had forgotten our stop (what kind of disorganized people do that?!), we tried asking for directions, but no one wanted to talk to us, so we just picked one that sounded similar to what we remembered and got off. It was the wrong one. This is what we spent the day doing...

ok. So I took some artistic license with the loops and stuff, but this is actually pretty close to what we did.

Finally. Finally! We got to the Field museum, only to find that it had just stopped admitting people for the day!We had trudged through freezing rain, only to finally get to a museum that had just closed?! You can imagine how upset all of us were. Luckily for us, my roommate was a good sport, and she had a cheerful attitude the whole time. That helped us out a lot. As I look back, I see that we could have walked the magnificent mile and been there. Unfortunately, we didn't know that, and the GPS was telling us to go one way, when we couldn't, then it would freeze, and...well, it was just a mess! But now we are experts! We got to see a lot of the city that we wouldn't have otherwise taken the time to see, and that was nice. It is so awesome! I loved looking at all the old buildings.

Daniel: I know why Friday was a horrible day. (In a creepy voice) "Beware the ides of March!"

On the upside, we were able to get a photo of the beautiful sunrise (near Lafayette, IN) that morning.

Day 2: The fun day!

Since we were super familiar with the city (the part we were in anyway), and the L, Saturday was a much more fun and exciting day. We hit the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, Millenium Park, and finished the day off with pizza at Giordano's (of course!). It was a fun filled, WAY less stressful day! But we didn't see half of the stuff we wanted to see in either of those places, so we want to go back before we leave the midwest. Here's what we did: