Chicago!!!

This weekend was a blast. I ended up going to Chicago... by myself!!! I never thought in a million years I would go to a city like that by myself but I had so much fun! I was supposed to go with a friend but something came up last minute so she couldn't go. So anyways, here is how my weekend went:

Saturday morning I got up early and took Rascal to the Vet Clinic so they could board him all weekend for me at 8am. Then I started my journey. Just me, the radio and Veronica. (Veronica is the GPS unit my friend from work let me borrow, and thank goodness she did because otherwise I would have gotten lost!) First I went to the hotel to see what time check in was. I got up there about 11am and check in was until 3pm, therefore I headed to Schaumburg to go to the Woodfield mall. That mall was huge! Three floors! My whole point in going to the mall was to find some new outfits for mine and Ben's pictures next month and I succeeded! I found me a tube top coral color dress and a navy blue tube top shirt. I bought Ben two polo shirts, a white one with small gray horizontal strips and a navy blue one with small white horizontal strips. I can't wait to wear them for pictures! yay! I left the mall about 3 and headed back to the hotel. After paying the tolls to get back I ended up back at the hotel around 4pm. I went up to my room with the intention of leaving and going down the street to see what was there, well, I fell asleep until about 6:30 and after that didn't really fell like getting up. The movies "The Break Up", and "Holiday" were on and I couldn't turn them off. So about 9pm I ordered some pizza and read my book, then finally went to bed around 11:30pm.

Sunday I got up about 10:30, got ready and headed to Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. Veronica did really well until we got into the city. Then she was telling me I was off route and needed to get on the nearest street when I was already on Monroe! lol So finally after driving around and avoiding the crazy taxi drivers I found the Millennium Park parking garage and pulled in. the drive up the parking garage reminded me of the movie "Bad Boys 2" (I think it is that one) where they are going up the parking garage and it's a big spiral drive all the way up! Felt kinda cool. I was pretending I was in the movies! lol

Anyways, I finally made it to the park! Wow, was a beautiful place. I love parks but this one is my second favorite, coming in behind Central Park in NYC. I loved all the cool 'things' they had. I'm not sure what you really call the things but they were really neat to see. There was also this water play area for kids. It's really hard to describe so just take my word for it when I say it was something that I have never seen before.

After the park I went back to my car to drive to Navy Pier. After turning the wrong way, I finally turned around and made it to the pier. I loved it there! I love the water and anything that has to do with water. There were a lot of different boats there you could ride, (Active military servicemen, not their families, gets to ride for free). I made my way to the end of the pier and watched these two people jet ski for about a half an hour. I wanted to just hop on with them! lol At 4pm I went on a site seeing boat cruise around the pier. That was really neat. While we were on the boat two CH-47's (what Ben flies in) flew overhead. I was hoping Ben would parachute down from one but of course, wishful thinking. lol Most of my time on the pier I just walked around and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the view.

Around 5ish I made my way over to the trolley to take to the red line subway. I have ridden a subway in NYC before with my aunt, but never by myself so that was an experience. I was a little nervous but I made it out alright! I rode the subway to Jackson street and then walked four blocks to Sears Tower.

While I was in line for tickets for the tower I started talking to these people that were behind me. The one I talked to the most was Wendy. She was from South Dakota. She used to go to school in Chicago and her and some of her friends from work came to the city to site see. Well by the time we got to the top she offered to pay for my fast pass ticket, which was THIRTY DOLLARS!!! I told her that was very nice of her but I would pay for mine. She wouldn't let me. I just stood there in shock. I thanked her the whole time. It is truly amazing that there are still people out in the world that are like that. I mean, she didn't even know me. I know that I will probably never run into her again but "Wendy, thank you so much. May God bless you and congrats on the baby boy on the way." I'm still pretty much speechless that all I can say is Thank you. The view from the top was beautiful. I personally liked the Empire State Building better because you were actually outside looking around. The top of the Sears Tower was all closed in so you couldn't really get the whole experience. It was very neat though. The new "Sky box" was pretty neat. It's a plexi glass box that you can stand in and while looking down you can see the street beneath you. After looking around and taking some pictures, we all headed back down to the ground. I thanked Wendy one last time and wished her good luck with the baby. I then bought my picture that they took of me before I went up and headed back to the red line subway back to Grand street to go back to my car near Navy Pier.

After getting lost in the city, thanks to Veronica, I finally made my way back onto the highway and back to my hotel. I made it back in time for Army Wives too! I wanted to stay and see the sunset from the tower and see the fireworks from the pier but since I was by myself I decided that I didn't want to try to find my way back in the dark and in all the traffic.

This morning I woke up about 9:30, went downstairs for some breakfast, and then headed on my way back to Springfield to pick up Rascal. I never thought that I would miss that puppy so much but I did.

Now, me and Rascal are enjoying the rest of our afternoon before I have to go back to work tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Enjoy the rest of your week! :)