Chicago, IL

Jeff booked his connecting flight through Atlanta so we could fly to Chicago together on Thursday afternoon.  We landed on time and headed straight to his place to drop off luggage and then run over to Costco to pick up some art he had stretched on canvas.  Two of the three looked great, but the third had to be redone.  We then went straight to the sushi place we ate at the last time I visited.  Southcoast did not disappoint!  We had another amazing meal and I enjoyed several lychee martinis.  Jeff had to work on Friday, so I got up and went to the gym.  Jeff's childhood friend, Colleen and her colleague Sara came into the city for a site visit at McCormick Place and then spent the afternoon working at Jeff's place.  They had made reservations at RPM (Bill and Giuliani Rancic's restaurant) for Friday night and it was absolutely delicious.  Sara knew the manager and he treated us to a round of cocktails at the bar before our booth was ready.  The food was fantastic and the conversation was even better.  After dinner we ran to the fire house across the street so Sara could pick-up a t-shirt for her 3-year-old son.  We had some fun on the fire pole before heading out to Vertigo, a roof top bar nearby.  The weather was amazing and we enjoyed the view of the city before heading over to another roof top bar a few blocks away.  Colleen and Sara invited another colleague of theirs, Shara, to join us.  She recently moved from San Francisco to Chicago after NEVER having been to the city before!  She's getting acclimated and was happy to have some familiar faces to take in the city with!  We were out pretty late and grabbed a cab back to Jeff's place for some sleep.

My favorite of all the photographs that Jeff had stretched onto canvas!

Fun in the taxi on the way to dinner at RPM

Sara, Colleen, me and Jeff at RPM

The main reason for my visit was to compete in the Urban Dare with Jeff on Saturday morning.  We named our team "Disoriented" and even though we had good intentions of making team t-shirts, we stuck with the event-provided shirts instead.  Jeff's sister, Annie, came to join us as official photographer as we started the race at a sports bar on West Wacker.  We were given 11 clues to decipher and they lead to 11 locations throughout the city.  We chose to solve them all at the bar and then map them out so we had a logical path to follow with as little back-tracking as possible.  We also had a few bonus tasks that (if completed) would give us 5 minutes off our final time!  We solved the clues very quickly and hit the streets to locate them.   In some of the locations we simply had to take our photo and move on. At other locations we had to perform a task to get a stamp in our passport.  Some of the tasks included making a sword out of a circus balloon, running a 3-legged race around Buckingham Fountain and getting a piece of bubble gum out of a pile of whipped cream without using hands then blowing a bubble.  We had a lot of fun.  I think we both expected it to be a bit more of a challenge and to involve more tasks, but it was fun and we came in 50th of out 130 teams.  IMPRESSIVE in my book!

The first location on the Urban Dare!

My proposal to a complete stranger!  I'll do anything to win!

One of the last locations on the Urban Dare!

After the race we headed back to Jeff's place for a little nap before meeting up with Sally for dinner and drinks.  Jeff picked a Tapas place called Mercat and it ended up being one more fantastic meal in a weekend full of fantastic meals.  YUM!  It was threatening to rain all evening and while we were eating the skies opened and dumped crazy amounts of rain on Chicago!  We walked just a short distance after dinner before deciding it wasn't going to be fun to navigate the city in the rain!  Jeff and I parted ways with Sally at the El and grabbed a cab back to his apartment so we could watch The Impossible.  If you haven't seen the movie you should!  While it is totally heart wrenching and at times gruesome, it is really well-done and the acting is spectacular.  I cried through nearly the entire thing!  :)

Sunday was Father's Day and after calling my awesome Dad to wish him a wonderful day, we headed out to St. Charles so Jeff could spend the day with his Dad.  We grabbed lunch at a burger joint in the city and hit the highway.  Traffic was a complete disaster and it took us FOREVER to get there.  Once we made it we met up with Annie to run some errands and buy the makings for pink peppercorn ice cream.  We snuggled with Wrigley, played bags (cornhole) in the backyard and cooked a yummy dinner before heading back to the city!  The traffic was just as bad on our way back, so it was slow going...

I was sad to leave on Monday, but had to get back to Atlanta for a busy week, including another steroid epidural treatment on my lower back to try and relieve the pain from my herniated L5 S1 disk.  Fingers crossed that it works.  I am off to my cousin's wedding next.  Details on that in the next post.