Road Trip Recap: Urbana, IL

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 1

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 2

So last we left off, we were staring at a ton of this:

At this point, you must be asking yourself why we'd be making a stop in Urbana, IL on our road trip. Easy answer? Our best friends live there (though not for long, because they're moving to Boston!) and it would have been terrible to be in the midwest without stopping by! Here we all are, looking still pretty similar to what we looked like when we first met in college (um, 9 years ago): You'll recognize the blond as my maid of honor (she and her boyfriend were in St. Louis for vacation and drove out for the weekend!) and middle two as both being in our wedding. It's a little insane that we've known each other for 9 years now, and it kind of sucks that we don't all live closer together because we have such a good time when we do get together. I'd post pictures, but most of them involve beer and stupidity. Instead, here's a preview of September 2010.... Eric & Liz are getting married and over the weekend asked Cat and I to be in her bridal party! Here's Liz and her bridesmaids: Not sure who took this, but I really wish it wasn't blurry:

Approximately 30 seconds later we stood back to back, linked arms, and attempted more cute pictures. Instead, we both fell on the pea gravel below us, which wasn't really a big deal till the next morning when Liz realized her knees were completely cut up and I realized that the screen on my camera was cracked. Yes, folks, it was that kind of weekend.

Here is my husband checking to see if the sundial in the yard was accurate:


It wasn't:

And of course, we capped off the night by pulling all of the knobs off the stove and putting them (and the toilet paper roll holder) in a bowl of water, which was promptly put in the freezer:Sunday was much more tame. After thawing out the oven knobs, we all went out for breakfast and then the boys spent the rest of the day doing this:
The girls took a trip to watch Liz try on wedding gowns.... I am DYING to post pictures, but can't cause her husband is probably reading this. Just know that it was awesome and I can't wait to see what she finally ends up picking! The bridesmaids did some trying on, as well. We'll be wearing cranberry knee-length dresses, so we just tried on everything knee-length in the store to get a feel for what looks good on each of us. Liz decided that as long as we're all in the same color and fabric type, we can each pick our own styles. I'm really excited to see how everything comes together!

After the dress shop, we returned to find the boys in the exact same position on the porch, except with more empty beer bottles. The girls joined in, and we sat on the porch for a long time. We ate dinner out there, cleaned up, and returned to just sitting around. We talked and sat and drank beer till it got dark, and it reminded me so much of when we used to do that in college. It was great.

The next morning we got up early to head to St. Louis.... we had a great time there (and took LOTS of pictures!), so stay tuned!

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 2

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 1

So we left off with the Yankees losing against the White Sox. We headed back to the hotel and spotted the bar, which looks amazing at night:

The "wall" is a sheet of glass, as are the shelves. It was called the "Big Bar", and with good reason. My $13 pineapple martini was HUGE. So huge, in fact, that I didn't even finish it (though it was delicious and I highly recommend it). After that, we went back up to our room for some much needed sleep.

The next morning we came down with a game plan: Millennium Park, lunch at the John Hancock Center, Michigan Ave, and then get back on the road to head to Urbana, IL. On the way out of the hotel I caught a shot of the Big Bar in the daylight:

While still quite impressive, it's just stunning at night.

We walked a few blocks down to Millennium Park and just enjoyed the scenery. The park was full of moms with strollers and babies, and I was instantly jealous of the fantastic childhoods these children were having. How great would it be to pack up a bag and go sit in Millennium Park with my kids? Then I remembered the insanely cold winters and everything evened out. We'll just have to visit with the kids. In the summer. A lot.

The first stop was the Bean. I don't know why, but the Bean is my favorite. I took about a dozen shots of it, but I'll leave you with just one:

The second stop in Millennium Park was the water feature. I have no idea what this is really called, but it's a magnet for every baby and toddler in the Windy City. There are two huge "wall" structures that leak water down to the brick ground. The bricks on the ground are specially designed to pool about an inch and a half of water on the ground for kids to splash in. The "walls" are designed with "bricks" that project images. Sometimes it's an image of water, similar to a babbling brook. Sometimes is this guy:

He also blinks. And spits water:

I took my shoes off and splashed around for a few minutes. It was so nice to just walk around, enjoy the weather, and people watch. We sat on the steps (lower left in the pic above) for a while and watched the moms chase their kids around.

After a while we took a walk down to the water:


We sat here for a while, too, just enjoying the sound of water lapping against the boats and the ringing of the little bells at the tops of the masts. It was so peaceful, which was funny, considering the hustle and bustle of the heart of the city was just blocks away.

We also took a walk by the Buckingham Fountain. It's situated in a huge open space:

I guess my favorite thing about Chicago is the fact that it is a huge city with so much green space. It's so clean. Everything is well maintained. There is so much history. Oh, and you can get lunch with amazing views of the city.

Lunch at the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Center was fantastic! Here' the John Hancock (the black building):


And here's the view from our table:

Note the beach, directly below us:

Again, with a view like this, how do you not order Champagne with your lunch? Exactly. Along with my Champagne, I had lobster bisque to start, and the blackened salmon sandwich. Ryan also had the lobster bisque, and went with the Black Angus sirloin sandwich. Everything was amazing - the bisque was completely worth the $7 a bowl. God, I could really go for some of that lobster bisque right now.

After lunch, we walked around the restaurant to get shots of the view from the other sides:

The tall building to the right of the picture is the Sears Tower:

I could sit up there and just look out the window all day. I would love to have dinner there some day, though I imagine it's quite expensive (seeing as our lunch clocked in at $70, including tip). Some day.

Also some day? We're totally bringing our little girls to American Girl Place. Lucky me, this store happens to be located directly across the street from the John Hancock Center, so I dragged Ryan through it, grinning like an idiot and telling him the back stories on all of the dolls.

Actually, I should note that "all of the dolls" strictly includes Addy, Felicity, Molly, Samantha, and my own girl, Kirsten. Hmmm... upon further research, it would appear that AG retired Samantha. WTF, American Girl? Anyway, I'm 27 years old and I dragged Ryan through the store like a 10 year old. Whatever. How do you not love them:

Those are all Kirsten, in case you're not familiar with the AG collection. And no worries, it's actually not so secret that Ryan enjoyed every second of this.... he's going to be a great dad. Plus, I promised him we could go to the Lego Store, so how mad could he really be?

The Lego Store was very cool; there were tons of huge creations, including a pirate:

And a mini-John Hancock Center:
For reference, here's a pic of the real John Hancock Center (and Water Tower Place, which is where American Girl Place and the Lego Store are located):

We also took a quick walk through Tiffany's, because who doesn't love to see lots and lots of sparkly things? I also dropped lots of hints on this, which would make a fantastic "thanks for birthing my baby" gift :-)

Then we jumped in the car and headed south. We saw lots of this:

2.5 hours later we arrived in Urbana, IL, home of some of our best friends in the world. Recap to come!

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 1

After months of planning, the road trip went off without a hitch.... and now that it's over, I'm going to do what any self-respecting blogger would do: RECAP! I'm going to break it up over a few parts, cause I have TONS of pictures and they're all pretty fun - so we'll do a post per city plus one for the extras (tips, tricks, and things we learned). First up is Chicago (which, for sanity sake, is split into 2 posts - one per day)!

I guess the best way to start a recap is at the begining, but the 11 hour drive from Maryland to Merrillville, Indiana was pretty uneventful. We got in our car, we drove (and drove, and drove) through a ton of corn fields, and ended up at a pretty sweet Radisson for the night. Even though we totally still had enough time/daylight to make it to Chicago, we planned on staying in Merrillville for 2 reasons:

1. Chicago is expensive. Instead of paying for dinner & a hotel (plus $48/night for parking) in Chicago on the first night, we payed $50 (thank you, Priceline) for a kick ass hotel and $40 for dinner and drinks at the hotel restaurant.


2. We wanted to relax. Seeing as Chicago is my favorite city ever, I wouldn't have been able to sit in the hotel and relax, knowing the city was just outside my room door. So we decided to stay about an hour outside of Chicago (Merrillville) to really get into vacation mode. And relax we did: we arrived, sat outside at a Irish pub for dinner, hit up the hot tub, and spent the rest of the evening at the hotel bar watching the Yankees game and drinking beers (the beer will become a repeat occurance).

So on Thursday morning we woke up bright and early to hit the road.... and about an hour later, we saw this:The beautiful Chicago skyline from the Dan Ryan Expressway! And more skyline as we inched closer:
After getting settled into the Hyatt Regency Hotel (Pricelined for $82, including tax. Normal price is $149 plus 15.4% tax.), the first order of business was finding lunch. We walked around for a few minutes and spotted the South Water Kitchen, which had an aborable outdoor bistro seating area. We took advantage of the gorgeous weather, snagged a table outside, and ordered the "Picnic Lunch". Our lunch came out with a red and white checked table cloth, with the food neatly packed into Chinese food boxes and stacked inside a picnic basket. It was fabulous. So fabulous, in fact, that I ordered a glass of Champagne and completely didn't think to have the server take our picture.

Then we took a walk over to the Sears Tower, enjoying the scenery along the way:

And finally we were outside the Sears Tower. I looked at Ryan and I asked him if he was nervous about the Skywalk. He shook his head, looked at me weirdly, and said, "No, why would I be?"

Um, because in 45 minutes (the line was soooooooo long) you'll be standing 103 stories over the Chicago sidewalk in one of these:

Sure enough, we got to the top, looked out over Chicago, and he says "Wow, that's freaky". I, on the other hand, loved it. After some coaxing (from me) and a not so gentle push (from an older guy standing near the ledge), Ryan joined me for a photo:


And here's what is right below our feet:

The view from the Sears Tower is amazing:

After the Sears Tower, we took a quick ride in the subway up to U.S. Cellular Field for a Yankees game (White Sox, for the home fans). The main attraction? Chicago style hot dogs. If you've never had one, you have no idea what you're missing. If you have, you know it's like Heaven on a poppy seed bun.

OK, so back to the game.... The stadium is really nice - super clean, very open, tons of great hot dogs, and a great view of the skyline:

Here's the view from our original seats, during batting practice:

About 30 minutes after this picture was taken, the huge tarp got rolled out over the field in anticipation of a rain delay. Sure enough, it started to pour, so we moved over to the third base side, under the over hang. I can't even tell you the number of hot dogs and beers consumed during the rain delay... there really is nothing like a (bunch of) $7 Bud Light at the ball park (well, there is something better, but I'll save that for the St. Louis post). I'm not sure what the final score was; I just know that the Yankees lost, which means fire works for the White Sox:


OK, that's probably enough for now... tomorrow I'll catch you up on the hotel bar, Millenium Park, our super fancy John Hancock lunch, and maybe even the American Girl store, if you're lucky!

How much can we cram into 7 days?

6 days and counting! I am SO EXCITED. So what did I do? I made a list. Duh. And lucky you, I'm going to share it.

MidWest Road Trip '09 - Must See Stuff

Chicago
We've both been to the Windy City numerous times and can't wait to go back! Millenium Park, Michigan Ave, Second City - seriously, what's not to love? The one thing we won't be doing is touring Rush & Division late night style. I like to save that for when I'm out with the girls... speaking of, I'd fly out for a bachelorette party in Chi-City (Sept. Bride, I'm talking to YOU!). Anyway, things we will be doing include:

• Lunch at the Signature Room at the 95th Floor (of the John Hancock Center). I've been there for drinks, and the view is stunning. So stunning, in fact, that I don't care that the club sandwich is $12. On a clear day, you can see so far... though the main attraction is the Lake shoreline, if you're lucky enough to sit on that side of the building.
• Walk out on the Sears Tower Ledge. I'm imagining it will be like that scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but better. And by better I mean vomit-inducing. I am so pumped.
• US Cellular Field. The Yankees will be in town and we've got tickets. Is there really anything better than a Chicago-style hot dog at a Yankees game? I think not.
• Shopping on Michigan Ave. And by shopping I mean oogling sparkly things in Tiffany's while reminding myself that I'd really like a reason to carry a diaper bag more than I'd like one of these. So I guess we'll be window-shopping. Whatev.
• Hit the beach. In general, I'm really against calling anything a beach if it doesn't have salt water lapping up against the shore, but I'll make an exception for Lake Michigan. Sand, waves, and my favorite city skyline? OK.

St. Louis
Neither of us has ever been to St. Louis, though we've heard there's a lot of cool stuff to see. Things that made the list include:

• Trying to steal a penguin from The Zoo. (Just kidding, zoo keepers. Unless you have a tiny pengy you want to give us. We would provide said pengy with a wonderful home - just ask our dog, I'm sure she could provide a great reference.)
• Go to the top of the Arch. Take a million pictures. Enjoy being at the top of the Nation's tallest monument and totally respect Thomas Jefferson's role in opening the West.
• Drink beer, say hi to the horses, and try to spot the Dalmation at the Anheuser-Busch brewing factory.

Terre Haute, Indiana
Ryan went to grad school out there, and I moved out to be with him. We lived in a little one bedroom apartment on a lake (ok, a retention pond, but it had fish in it). He was in school, and I worked 3 jobs to help pay rent. We didn't have a penny to our name, but it was good. Our relationship is much stronger for it, and we have a little red dog to show for it. You can't get from St. Louis back to the east coast without going through Terre Haute, so we decided to make it an official stop on our Tour. Our must see list:

• Terre Haute Humane Society. We adopted our girl in 2005. Back then she was a sack of bones covered in red matted fur. Four years later she's healthy, happy, and sleeping with her head on my pillow every night. THHS gave us our beautiful dog, so we're dropping off a few big bags of dog food in hopes that THHS can feed a few more pups 'till they get adopted, too.
• Moggers. Ryan used to live in a teeny-tiny apartment above this restaurant and we'd always go for dinner whenever I visited. The have the best bourbon sauce. They mean for the sauce to go on buffalo wings, but I prefer it on quesadillas. Wow, I could really go for a quesadilla dipped in bourbon sauce right now....
• The Garden Quarter - our old apartment community. I'm a sap like that. If you click the link and scroll down, you can see the pond that was right outside our sliding door. Marley spent lots of time barking at the geese that lived there. I am tearing up just thinking about it. This does not bode well for that segment of the trip.

Champaign, IL
I really want to write something sappy here, but I'm going to refrain. E&L, we can't wait to see you. For real. Oh, and we're pumped for the party. I'm hoping those cornhole boards are still around; I haven't played a proper game of cornhole since we moved back east.

• Friends, friends, and more friends.
• Dress shopping!!!! Of both the bridal and bridesmaid variety.
• Champaign County Fair? I don't know if we'll have enough time, but just knowing it'll be happening makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

So that's it, folks. Our whirlwind MidWest Tour in a nutshell. Ryan - you seriously may need to call in sick on Thursday; I truly don't think we'll be back on Wednesday night.... but it'll all be worth it, right?! Getting back to our roots? I mean, I worked at Columbia House for this relationship. The least you can do is let me re-live it for a minute :-)

What do you think? Can this list be accomplished in 7 days? I guess we'll find out!

7 Days, 31.5 Hours, 1885 Miles

MidWest Road Trip '09 will commence in T-7 days, which obviously means today will be spent working on our travel plan.

According to MapQuest, our 7 day road trip will cover 1885 miles of open road with a total driving time of 31.5 hours. Most of you might think I'm setting myself up for relationship suicide by choosing to spend 31.5 hours in a car with my husband, but I can assure you that many, many trips between NJ and IN have proven that we're a pretty solid pair when it comes to road tripping. We'll load up our iPods with clips from Comedy Central (if you've never heard Nick Swardson, you need to see this) and music and we're pretty much good to go.

Here's a quick recap of where we're going:

We're got a pretty packed itinerary, which I won't bore you with today. I'll save that for tomorrow!

Hitting the road...

Just 16 days till the great MidWest Road Trip '09, which obviously means I've been list-making at work instead of doing work at work. 7 days, 3 states (well, more states than that, really, but we're site-seeing in 3), and 1 car.

The To Do List includes:
Downloading lots of new stuff for the iPods (and creating playlists)
Buying a cooler (I can't live on McDonald's for a week while we're driving)
Buying lunchmeat and drinks for said cooler
Cleaning out my car (I'm not sure if the seats are made out of actual cloth or just dog hair)
Packing
Getting everything together for the dog (She's doing a week long sleepover with Lola)

Granted, this list took probably 5 minutes to actual write. Then I spent some time coming up with food items that I need to pack to ensure we don't need to stop for fast food on the road. That took a little bit longer - maybe 15 minutes. And the rest of the day was spent looking up directions to stuff we wanna see/do. I was highly productive at work today. Just not doing stuff I was supposed to be doing.

Buy Baseball Tix - Check!

We planned on getting tickets to see the Yankees while we're in Chicago, but had been putting it off because the tickets were f'ing ridiculous not cheap and with the weddings we have coming up money is tight. But the other day, Ryan got an early birthday check in the mail and decided he wanted to put it towards good seats at US Cellular Field.

So last night we bought some kick ass seats. To show you the awesomeness of our seats, I've taken the seating chart from Ticketmaster.com and put in some key locations:

Ryan wants to catch a foul ball. I want to see Derek's butt and get a couple Chicago-style hot dogs. We want to thank our Southern Aunt & Uncle for helping to make this happen for us :-)

I heart Priceline (and BetterBidding)

Waaaaay back when we first started thinking about roadtripping it out to the midwest, I crunched some numbers and realized that a weeks' worth of hotel rooms adds up fast. Just prior to our dreams of a vacation being crushed, I discovered some websites that totally rocked my world. I'm hoping that this quick tutorial will inspire you to do some cheap traveling this summer, too.

There are two websites you need to know: BetterBidding.com and Priceline.com. As long as you have these sites, you're good to go. Priceline is where you actually buy your hotel rooms, but BetterBidding is where you'll find out how cheap you can get them :-)

I ended up getting a GREAT price at a beautiful hotel in Chicago, so I'll use that as an example.

First you'll need to know how Priceline works. Basically, you go to Priceline, click on "Name your own price" and then input your desired travel location and dates. The screens look like this:

(source)

I put in Chicago for one room in June (not my real travel dates). The next screen will ask for your desired location, star rating, and then will ask for your bid (what you're willing to pay for a room). Here it is:

(source)
You can see the different options for location under "Step 1". The important thing to know when booking through Priceline is that you will have NO IDEA what hotel you'll end up with once this is all said and done. You will know the general area (Michigan Ave as opposed to the Millenium Park area) the hotel will be in, as well as the star rating (because you get to choose it), but you won't know the exact hotel until after it's paid for. That's right... if your bid is accepted, it automatically charges your card and THEN will tell you what you ended up with. There are some rules for how often you can bid if you don't win, but Miss Glitter over at Weddingbee does a great job of explaining everything, so I'll leave that to her. Click here for the full scoop.

But it's a little scary, right? Paying for the room (non-refundable through Priceline) before you know where it is? Well, the folks at BetterBidding are helping people get a better idea of what acceptable bids (name your own price) have been and what hotels are being won.

Here's the quick How To. Go to BetterBidding and scroll down to your desired state. You'll see something similar to this:

You should see some options under each state: tips, hotwire, and priceline. Click the Priceline option for your desired state. Then you'll see this:

(source)

Lucky winners of hotel bids post their wins so you can get a gauge on what hotels have come up and what the winning bids have been. You can see the first topic is a 4 star hotel in the Millenium-Loop-Grant Park area with a winning bid of $69 a night. Armed with this information, you can bid on Priceline in the same area with a reasonable expectation that you could win a bid for about $65-75 and will probably end up at the Palmer House.

OK, back to my example. After scrolling through the pages for Chicago: Millenium-Loop-Grant Park, it became pretty apparent that hotel rooms were going for anywhere between $60 and $80. I bid $70 for a 4 star room in the Michigan Ave area and won on my first try! After i won, I was a little angry with myself for not starting out with a lower bid, but I learned my lesson and get an even better deal on our St. Louis hotel. But in Chicago, we'll be staying at the Hyatt Regency... for $70.... $88 including tax. If we booked through the Hyatt website, we'd be paying $195 including tax - for the same exact room!!! Booking through Priceline saved us $107! And look at where we'll be staying:

(source)

$88 a night for this! How unreal is that? It's especially amazing when I know I should be paying $195 a night. Love. It. So. Much.

Yey for affordable travel without sacrificing style OR comfort. Anyone else have fantastic luck with Priceline?