Can you handle a little spontaneity? Can you do things on a whim?
Well, Monday afternoon Paul and I were chatting when Paul seemingly randomly asks if I wanted to go to Chicago. He found a good price on a flight going out the next day, Tuesday. I had spend the previous five days on vacation with a cold, fighting off soreness and congestion. Mom did come for the Bethel Alumni board on Thursday but it was a pretty non-eventful vacation.
After a few minutes of thinking about it, finding flight information, tickets and availability I got Katy's approval and we were going to go. The final conversation went something like this.
Paul: Am I clicking purchase or what?
Joel:aaaaaahhh, sure
yeah
yes
do it
let's do it
oh boy
Paul: shoot, we're going to Chicago tomorrow
Joel: haha
excellent!
And plans were made. Weather was forecasted to be 74 degrees and all sun and it turned out just that way, perfect.
We didn't have a particular itinerary but if you look at Paul's great work and map this is what the trip looked like.
Map:
View Chicago 2011 in a larger map
Go ahead and street view our walking too.
05:13 MSP
07:06 MDW
07:30 Orange Line - Midway
08:04 Orange Line - Madison/Wabash
08:13 McDonald's
08:36 Cloud Gate
08:42 Millennium Park
09:19 Navy Pier
Orange/Green Line - Madison/Wabash
Pink Line - Adams/Wabash
Pink Line - Quincy
10:32 Willis Tower
10:46 Skydeck
11:47 Jamba Juice/Starbucks at S Wells St & W Jackson Ave
Brown Line - Quincy
Brown Line - Armitage
Thread Lounge
Ralph Lauren Rugby at W Armitage Ave & N Sheffield Ave
Walked down Sheffield Ave
CVS at N Marcey St & N Sheffield Ave
Headed East down North Ave
J.Crew
Banana Republic
01:27 Apple Store, Lincoln Park
01:28 Red Line - North/Clybourn
Red Line - State/Lake
02:02 Potbelly at N State St & N Lake St
Headed N on State St
Went E on E Wacker Dr
Continued E on E Wacker Pl
Walgreens at E Wacker Pl & N Michigan Ave
Headed N on N Michigan Ave
Hit up for $ at Michigan & Wacker Dr
The Shops at North Bridge (nothing to really see)
Gap
Levi's (closed)
03:07 Niketown
03:20 Apple Store, N Michigan Ave
Zara (former mall-Chicago Place)
Allsaints Spitalfields (former mall-Chicago Place)
Banana Republic
Polo Ralph Lauren
04:13 Chicago Water Tower
TOPSHOP / TOPMAN (former Borders) at Michigan & E Pearson St
Headed South on E Tower Court
Headed East on E Chicago Ave
Stopped at the McDonald's at Chicago Ave & State Street
04:40 Red Line - Chicago
04:50 Red Line - Lake
Headed East on Randolph St
05:01 Green Line - Randolph/Wabash
05:26 Green Line - Oak Park
Head N on Oak Park Ave
Eric & Emily's on Nashville Ave
06:09 Michael's Beef
08:40 MDW
10:49 MSP
The drive at 5:00am to MSP.
We began our journey on the orange line from Midway to Madison and Wabash in downtown Chicago.
Soon enough this was our view, staring at the State Street Macy's Karl Lagerfeld window eating breakfast at McD's.
A short walk later we were at The Bean or Cloud Gate.
Millenium Park and Navy Pier were next.
After Navy Pier we made our way to the Willis Tower and the Skydeck and found ourselves on the glass enclosure 103 floors up, 412 meters, 1353 feet. Paul was courageous enough or dumb enough to get right out on the glass enclosure, lay down and sit down. Outrageous. I didn't think about falling and dying as much this time so I was able to go out there for a few seconds and here's the proof that you may have needed to see via my tweet.
We stopped at Jamba Juice and Starbucks for a snack and headed on the brown line towards Armitage and the Lincoln Park neighborhood as I wanted to go to the Ralph Lauren Rugby store.
We started our walk to the next train back downtown and before I knew it we were approaching North Avenue, where Emily has taken me shopping just about every time I'm there. That was pretty cool to recognize where I was enough to think I was close to that street before the Patagonia store jumped out at me! So, we jumped back on the train and it connected us with Pot Belly for lunch and then Michigan Avenue again where we wandered through some stores.
Like it says, we stopped in Gap, Levi's, Nike, Zara, All Saints, Banana Republic, Topman and also saw the Chicago Water Tower.
But before you knew it we had to head to Eric and Emily's on North Nashville. So we took the train to Oak Park and started our walk up before Eric picked us up. We were able to see their new place, enjoy a nice dinner, hang out with Ellie and Edie a little bit and even say hello to Mom and Dad as they were taking care of the girls while Eric and Emily were in Mexico.
It was a whirlwind day and Paul's first time in Chicago was a ton of walking, a great time navigating public transit and it couldn't have been better timing with the price of the flight, having perfect weather, a great day off to explore, the chance to have Emily and Eric just move and be able to see their house and enjoy dinner and even have Mom and Dad there to say hello with.
I just hope they survived taking care of Ellie and Edith for a few days!
It was quite the day. It felt like more than one day in fact. But I'd do it all over again; even if it wasn't going to be as ideal as this trip.
2 comments:
Thanks for coming. It was fun to see you in two days in 2 different states. Now let one of them be CT!!!
I know, it was fun seeing you unexpectedly in Chicago. It'd be fun to make a regular occurrence to do that a couple times a year.
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