Mommy and Daddy’s Weekend in Chicago
Mommy and Daddy work really, really hard. When we’re not at our jobs, we’re at home, working really, really hard, with Jonathan and Justin. If, on the off chance we both happen to get a small break from either one of our Jobs, its usually time spent making decisions and calculations about either one of the two, and how they relate to the rest of everything else not in those two lumped categories.
In short, we needed a damn break. We needed a break from our professional lives, we needed a break from our two incredibly awesome kids, and we needed a break from the monotony of the Detroit Metro norm.
Shortly before Mother’s Day 2009, I had the idea to find a way to get Morgan her beloved Jamba Juice, to which she was first introduced to when I made her move to San Diego with me. Jamba Jiuce is, for lack of a better description, a healthy fast food joint. They specialize in drinks, which I can best describe as fruit smoothies. They are much more than that, but thats the best description I could ever come up with. I’m not a huge fan, i had 32 oz of it the whole trip, to morgans 312 gallons or so.
So back on topic, the trip was inspired by mothers day and knowing that morgan hadn’t had her beloved jamba juice in about 2 and a half years. Morgan unfortunately had to work all of Mother’s day weekend, and could not whatsoever get any time off. Shite. We had a good mothers day here in good ole detroit, and all was forgotten, till i remembered, oh yeah, here’s what i WANTED to do for mothers day. Take a weekend to Chicago, the closest place I could find that had any Jamba Juice stores.
And so it was. That was monday, and this is sunday. We decided we were going to take a mommy and daddy only trip, and made arrangements with the best grandparents in the world, and made arrangements with hotels.com for a nice hotel right near o’hare, and so it turns out, the ridiculously large Stephens Convention Center (formerly the rosemont convention center), where the National Restaurant Association (yes, the NRA) was hosting its yearly convention/trade show. Awesome! Though I didn’t know that. Nor did I know that our hotel, the Sofitel, was directly connected to the convention center as well as the embassy suites.
But thus begins our journey. it so worked out, that out of 3 years of playing soccer, Jonathan’s saturday morning game was the earliest it had ever been, at 9am. So we decided to leave right after his game. Well, we woke up around 8am, coffee, smoke, pack pack pack pack pack laundry pack, oh crap we’re so far behind and its 10 to game time, lets go. Go to the game, Jonathan’s team wins, still undefeated, 3 SEASONS in a row! And we’re off, Mommy takes the kids to grandma and grandpa’s house, daddy goes home and finishes packing. And we’re off!
The day before, Morgan had found and printed all the directions and google maps and everything, from everywhere, to everywhere (hotel to destination, destination back to hotel, etc), and we kinda figured we’d do a few major things. 1, hotel. it’s a nice place, and we want to enjoy it. Gino’s pizza, my main motivator was to get some famous chicago deep dish pizza while we were there. I’d been to chicago about 15 years prior as a kid, and i remember having the best pizza i’d ever had. That, and i also remember having being forced by my sister to have sushi for the first time ever. And so began my addiction to sushi.
And so here began our itinerary: Random Downtown chicago wandering, Navy Pier, Gino’s East (pizza, recommended by a client), Jamba Juice (times 30), Shedd Aquarium (been here before, and been to the one in san diego, and had a great experience at both), hotel, Ra Sushi (recommended by a friend), and a few other random places i forget about.
We finally leave detroit around 11am EST. I had completely forgotten that chicago was in a different time zone, great for arrival, shitty for departure, since we were checking in the hotel at 3pm saturday, and checking out 12pm sunday, and had to be back sunday night-ish. We made great time, morgan spent a small fortune on tires the previous day, and these things made us fly. Google gave us the directions, and we eventually got on 94 eastbound to chicago, and toll road city, and indiana, land of the troopers.
# On the road to chicago. woooooooo! child free weeekend!!!!11:35 AM May 16th from txt
The drive there was pretty uneventful. a few giggles at the ridiculous signs for Lions Den Adult Store, over 3000+ DVD’s, and the laser tattoo removal place that had a billboard with a life-size doctor holding a billboard size eraser, erasing a tatto off a billboard sized leg, and a few other random musings, we finally got to Gary, Indiana. We only stopped once, somewhere between Kalamazoo and the indiana border, and on our way through gary, we were both really excited to get on our trip. Driving through gary was kinda cool, its totally an industrial area, not like anything i’ve ever seen just driving through a city on the freeway.
# In kalamzoo.weeeee.1:11 PM May 16th from txt
# Welcome to chicago bitches!!!3:11 PM May 16th from txt
So then we see it, the chicago skyline. I’d seen it before in person, and i’m a bit of a nut about any kind of skylines, and one of my favorites is chicago, of course because of the sears tower, so i was pretty geeked about seeing it. Then….chicago traffic hit.
# Holy hell chicago traffic blows3:53 PM May 16th from txt
We were stuck in Chicago traffic for about 60 minutes between downtown and o’hare, what should normally be about a 10-15 minute ride. On a Saturday, at about 3:30pm. So we get off the freeway per google maps, turn left per google maps, and start looking for 5550 N River road, Des Plaines, IL. See, When we got off the freeway, S. River road was to our right, and N. River road was to our left. Our address, and directions, told us to turn left, onto North River road. Nope. After about a mile of 3300….3600…..6700…wait, what? wtf? 3600 to 6700 in one building? How the…, Ok, turn around. 6700, 3600, 3300, 9080? WHAT THE….
We found the hotel. Success! We finally find out way through the ridiculous parking setup they have, a parking deck shared between the convention center, embassy suites, and the sofitel, we park, and take the skywalk to the hotel lobby. Checking in please!
We get our keys to room 704, and we go to the room. Pretty nice, bed looks comfy as hell, little warm but I kicked the Thermostat down, dropped my bags, and opened up the window. Decent view of the convention center, and a decent view of the skyline, which you cant really see (pretty much dead center) in the below pictures.
We were directly in the flight path of o’hare, but we never heard a plane. I say hey, i spent 3 hours online looking for a smoking room that was less than $200 a night, and half decent, I need a cigarette! So I lit up. Mommy noticed a sign shortly therafter that said “The Sofitel O’Hare is a non smoking facility” Or something similar. So we call down to the front desk “Yeah uhh, we booked a smoking room, but this appears to be a non smoking room” (broken english) “There are no smoking rooms at the sofitel. Sofitel is smoke-free”. Ok, well…we paid for a smoking room, that was pretty much the deciding factor in staying here, was that we were promised a smoking room.” Blah blah blah. $300 fine if anybody smells smoke anywhere near our room.
# Hotels.com sold me a smoking room in a hotel with absolutely no smoking rooms in it.4:50 PM May 16th from txt
So the poor french lady hooks us up with expedia through the phone. After about 15 minutes and 3 hotels later, we book a room through expedia for the raddisson, about 2 miles further from downtown than we already were, but who cares, she guaranteed us (after she called 2 other hotels and being told there were no smoking rooms available, and one of them was INSIDE o’hare, which was really not an option), a smoking room for 99 bucks a night, and 4.3 of 5 star rating on their site, great! We begrudgingly leave the Sofitel, apologizing for the mistake (like it was our fault), and they say my card will be credited everything within a week or so. We find our way to the new hotel, after some broken english directions from the concierge.
Get to the raddison, weird area, halfway residential, halfway …. kinda sorta ALMOST ghetto. Whatever, stress free trip, stress free trip! Get in, after watching the fat guys in the lobby brush the cheeto’s out of their beard, and the weird shifty chinese guy in sweat pants in front of me ask the desk lady something, I get to the desk. Checking in please!
“Ok, so thats one night, 1-2 guests, king size bed, right?” “Yep! Smoking Right?” “……..Ummmmmmmmm…………there’s no smoking rooms in this hotel anymore.” “Ok. I just booked here through expedia, being guaranteed a smoking room, after leaving another, much nicer hotel because they had no smoking rooms. Are there any smoking rooms in the entire city?” “Well, no not reallly, ever since they passed the new law, theres not many places you can smoke anymore”.
After a quick facepalm, I ask, “Ok, so my card hasn’t been charged yet, right? I can cancel my reservation, no fees, none of that, right?” “No, they already charged your card [Even though this desk lady never swiped it], and unless you cancel through expedia, you’ll be charged a cancellation fee.”. ARRRRRRRRGH. Clearly, I’d much rather not smoke at the nice hotel, than not smoke at the trashy hotel. So I say thank you and calmly walk back to the car.
We head on back to the other hotel, call and explain the situation to them. Can we have our room back? Nope!, Already cancelled. You can re-book another room though. So we did, at about 50 bucks more than the original room. Stress free. stress free. stress free.
Good, get to the room, and relax for a minute. Ok, it’s time for some jamba juice, and definitely time for some pizza. We leave, on our way to the closest jamba juice from the hotel, about 15 miles away, towards downtown. We FINALLY get to jamba juice, and morgan gets her usual mega mango 400 oz. I get the first thing that sounds half edible, a strawberry whirl, 16oz. We drink and drink and decide to go to Gino’s next.
Gino’s was ridiculous. After figuring out Chicago parking (it’s nothing like i’ve ever seen before…, different colors, different curbs, and a “paybox” that takes credit cards and spits out a slip to display on your dash that tells you when you gotta GTFO), we got to gino’s. It was way way bigger than I had expected. Usually when you get advice for food from a local, it’s a little hole in the wall that no tourist would ever consider. this was not the case, this place was as big as a Meijer’s, and imagine Meijer’s with one checkout lane open on the 4th of july, christmas, and day after thanksgiving, all at once. We got in line, and were quickly greeted by the hostess asking us how many we had. Two of course, with no boosters, high chairs, or otherwise. Just 2!
#At ginos east. 45 minute wait for pizza. stuff better be good.
About 10 minutes later the guys in front of us asked how long the wait was, she seemingly made up a random number and spat out “about 45 minutes”. About 1 and a half hours later, we got inside. where we got to wait in another line. The guys in front of us (who had also been in front of us outside, but then we got separated), welcomed us “to the inside”. One drunk dude mentioned “this sucks. you wait, and wait, then you get called in to wait again. if i see another person behind us get a table, i’m gonna [something]). then another hostess approached us, asked “you guys are 2 right?” “yep” “right this way!”. haha, i felt so bad for the poor guy. don’t go to a popular place on a saturday with a party of 6 i guess!
So we sit down, waiter is really cool, and we check the menu. $22 for a SMALL!??!?! UGH. whatever, its vacation, and its chicago pizza, and the reason i came. we check the appetizer’s cuz we’re fat, and we decide to get the spinach sticks (mozzarella sticks, but with spinach too). We also decide on a medium supreme ($27 frickin dollars!). We order, and our waiter (who reminds us TOTALLY of a friend, body language, looks, speech, total twins), informs us that its about a 45 minute wait for a deep dish (these things are about 2 inches thick. Think of apple pie, times 2), we say “well that sucks, but right on”. so we chill, and we get our spinach sticks (out of this FUGGIN WORLD), and talk and laugh and look around at the writing all over the walls (that’s their thing, write on the walls, write on the signs, etc etc. the ceiling, everything, written all over.)
I had been to chicago about 15 years ago with my youngest sister and my mom, and i remember going to a pizza place and getting the most ridiculously awesome pizza ever. So i called said sister on my way downtown, and told her i was in chicago, and she said “you remember the pizza place? with the writing all over the walls?” “yeah! what was that place called?” “i dunno….” “yeah me either….”.
It had been so long that i didn’t remember anything about the place, but this was definitely it. This was the place that I had coincidentally been to 15 years ago. We saw so many tables with so many Cubs hats get their food, and we continued to drool. FINALLY! it was our turn.
I shat my pants. the waiter served us our first pieces (because regular civilians would curl up into the fetal position and cry trying to get the first slice out of this 2″ thick pizza). and it was like a little taste of heaven. They did NOT skimp on the toppings. we had easily 400,000 pieces of pepperoni, with roughly 4 and a half 3 pound onions, and about 30 cans of mushrooms (yes, canned. UGH. i can’t stand canned shrooms on pizza, but whatever) per slice. it was the best thing i’d tasted in about 15 years.
I bowed out after ONE SLICE. yes. one slice of our 8 slice pizza. morgan had two small slices. so we had 5 slices left, and i was done. I’m the guy that can eat about 3 and a half larges or so. Once slice, thats it. game over.
So we pack up, pay the watier a 400% tip just cuz he looked like a friend (and kept my drink full…ish), and head on out. We managed to find a parking spot right across the street, so we cross and get acosted by a random dude asking for a cigarette. for the first time in history, it was ACTUALLY her last cigarette, though im sure the guy didnt believe us (i didnt have time to roll any, and i was out too, heading to the car to roll some). So we get to the car, i pop the trunk and grab my rolling paraphernalia, and roll about a pack. We exit, pay the paybox for another 2 hours of parking, and set out to explore random ass downtown Chicago.
After a few blocks i realize, hey, i just drank about 300 ounces of sprite, and i gotta GO! so we spot the biggest mcdonalds i’ve EVER seen in my life. It was two stories, but not two stories like the regular mcdonalds sometimes are, this was two stories of awe
some. with an elevator, and the classic arches, and all sorts of other awesomeness.
We refreshed ourselves, and through the wall at this mcdonalds, I learned that the first ever McDonalds opened up in Des Plaines, IL, which just so happened to be where our hotel was. Coinkidink? I think not! I’m meant to eat McDonald’s for life!
We leave after “huh!’ing at the “wall of firsts” at this mcdonalds, and we find ourselves at the biggest sporting goods store ever. 8 floors of sporting goods, with a basement. This sporting goods store is famous for storing real cement handprints of the greats. I touched the same cement as Mike Ditka, Michael Jordan, and many other sports greats. Their prices were outfrickinrageous though, so even though we were on the hunt for some bathing suits (I forgot both of ours, and the hotel pool was open 24 hours), we said BUHBYE. We walked around some more, and finally decided that we were too tired to go on. We made our way back to the hotel, but before that rememebered that there was a Target by the dumpy ass radisson, so we went there in search for swimsuits, and diapers, cuz lord knows, we have to think of the children on our mommy and daddy only weekend getaway. I get a dorky swimsuit, as does morgan, and the guys in front of us who must be on the biggest date of their life get like 3 gallons of wine (at no more than 2.99 each, mind you), we leave, and slowly make our way back to the hotel. Even at 10pm, the freeway from downtown to O’Hare is RIDICULOUSLY BUSY. We get to the hotel, hang out for a minute, then get into our swimsuits and go up to the 10th floor where the pool is.
We pass by the honeymoon suite, where their same dirtied dishes our still outside the door, and get to the pool. Water was wonderful, and we were the only ones in it. We swim for a while, and decide to go in the sauna. As we’re leaving the pool area, some Danish tourists (60 plus) are looking for the hot tub that doesn’t exist, and decide on the sauna. After all 4 of us plus the security guard figure out how to work the sauna, mommy and I decide we don’t want to share a sauna with some old ladies from Denmark, so we had back to the room where we relax some really funny movie who’s name totally escapes me. Something with Steve Carrell that wasn’t 40 year old virgin…
good morning chicago!
We wake up refreshed and ready to attack the day. Mommy is sleepy and I’m wide awake (totally unusual and opposite), so i grab the car keys on the road for the 7-11 we saw close to the hotel, a few miles away, in search of some coffee. I get the keys, my wallet, the hotel key, and our parking pass (magnetic strip deal). I find the car and smoke 412 cigarettes while traversing the parking garage, and get to the parking gate. 2 cars in front of me. Ok. Hmmmm. Looks like this guy is having trouble. Whatever, its sunday morning and im excited to be in chicago! Dude, you put the card in, you pull it out. it aint that hard. Ok, seriously, what’s this guys problem. Alright, i’ve seen enough cabbies do it, HONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK! Hoooooooooooonk! dude finally realizes he cant get past, and backs up and turns around. Dude in front of me scans his parking pass and leaves. I get up, and try to put the pass in, and its like “………….”. I turn it around. “…………”. And around. “…………”. and around again “………….”. Ok….what the? I look at the picture of the card on the machine, match it to the direction of my pass, and try to put it in. no go. wont even take it. I call morgan, “yeah uhh…. hmmm. wtf?” “i dunno…” “whatever, i’ll figure it out”. I try a few more thousand times, while a few more cars pile up behind me.
I finally pull of to let the cars behind me pass, and go up again and try a few more times. No Go. the cars that were behind me went just fine. I’m panicking, because of the previous drama. Maybe my room doesnt exist? Maybe i was supposed to prepay for parking (18$ per night, no crap). Maybe this maybe that. So I go up again and see that theres a call button on the machine, so i press it. It connects to the front desk, where i explain the situation, and the lady says “Ok, I’m gonna let you through, but come to the front desk as soon as you get back.”. Well that doesnt sound good. Maybe my card got declined? Maybe I’m a wanted fugitive in 3 states? Who knows?!
I go to 711 and get back and go to the front desk. The front desk lady knows exactly what i’m talking about and says “some MORON from the embassy suites tried to use their card in our machine, and it totally froze up our whole system.” Knowing what i know as a programmer, and knowing what i know in so far as the person in front of me going through just find, then the person BEHIND me going through just fine, i knew this was total BS. But whatever, i got a new parking pass, and went back to the room where mommy was doing her hair in the bathroom. I sipped my coffee, checked my email, and browsed fark.com.
And browsed. And Browsed. And browsed. Finally, i got fed up hearing the stupid hair dryer, and went into the bathroom (the door was open, and was open when i walked in, and i swear she looked at me when i walked in). Needless to say, i scared the life out of her. We hung out, drank coffeee, and went out for a few smokes until it was about noon, and checkout was at 1pm. We checked out, i signed the ridiculous bill, and we were on our way. Lets get some breakfast!
We decided to go to the place that was right across from Gino’s, that smelled SO FRICKIN GOOD, when we were at gino’s the night before. Ed Debevic’s. It looked like a regular old hole in the wall. We found parking after trying to, once again, decipher Chicago parking rules, and walked on in. It was a 50’s diner-ish place, who apparently prided themselves on crappy customer service. This place was like the place in san diego (who nearly all readers of this site willl know what i’m talking about without hearing the name that i cant remember, the place where they throw straws at you, etc etc).
So we check the menu, and they don’t have breakfast food, but they have a pretty awesome selection of everything that sounds wonderful. I decide to get the deluxe chili dog, with onions and mustard. the description of this dog mentioned nothing of its’ size or girth. I opted for a side of fries as well. Morgan got a regular dog with sauer kraut and fries. I hate kraut.
So our waiter, Pony Boy, who had already accused Mommy of being a princess for asking for a lemon with her water, and giving us paper hats with Ed Debevic’s name on it, brings us our food. I later find out that Pony Boy’s real name is Jan. Haha, i’d call myself pony boy too. Anyway, he was really cool, and he gave me crap for being a wings fan (this was the day of game 1 for the 08-09 western conference finals between detroit and chicago), and another waitress at the place was all hot and bothered for the wings.
Finally, our food came, and i was astonished. Sure, i was hungry. As hungry as normal. But when i saw the dog this pony boy put in front of me, i was intimidated. It was at least a foot and a half long. Sure, i’ve killed footlongs before no problem. But footlongs from A&W or coney island are usually pretty tiny in width. Not this thing. This thing was about 18 inches long and wider than any normal Brat or polish sausage i’ve ever seen. It was a monster to eat all monsters. Plus with about 400 pounds of cheese, and some REAL chili on top of it, it was definitely a fork and knife affair.
We left more than satisfied, after i gave poor pony boy a 25% tip, and said “ok, wheres the closest jamba juice!”. Lord knows, we needed food. Let me give a shameless plug for the iphone here. We would have been completely screwed without this thing. We had a pamphlet from jamba juice with addresses of their chicago locations, and we knew where we were (336 N Wells, if i recall correctly), and google maps figured out the rest. After mapping about 10 jamba juice locations, we figured that the jamba juice at the John Hancock Center was the closest location, at 1.6 miles from where we were. Realizing that we had just imbibed about 4,000 calories past our daily recommended intake, we put 2 more hours on the paybox, and set out. I’m wearing my dress shoes, which are comfy for office life, but not so much for walking. We finally see it (after i swear to everything i know that that is NOT the sears tower, the sears tower is surrounded by x and y and z, but only because, from afar, it looks like it is). We get there. This jamba juice is actually IN the sears tower, at the basement where theres a few shops and stores, such as cheesecake factory (i’ve met this place both in toronto and san diego, and i care not to take it on again. cheesecake factory wins, in my eyes. I succumb to its awesome, especially after the meal i just had. So, we hang out on the stairs of the sears tower, and drink the jamba, and morgan tries completely and totally unsuccessfully to get me to up the tower. Yeah, no, I’ve been to the top of the CN tower in Toronto, and that’s enough for me, thanks.
The Sears Tower is an incredible site, and quite intimidating. 94 floors of awesome. We hung out in the gift shop for a minute, and Mommy continued to try to get me up the tower. Nope. We left with the intention of going to world famous garrett’s popcorn, and then back to the car to go to the navy pier.
We walked and walked and at some point we saw a huge crowd of people. We went across the street to see what it was all about, and it was some cool street performers. They were painted silver and were putitng on a show acting like robots and such, with music and comedy etc etc. It was pretty cool.
They eventually went on break, and we went on the search for world famous garretts popcorn, after ending up in a radio station building at what we thought was the address for garretts, and walking up and down the streets of chicago looking for it, we gave up and headed back toward the car. We got there, and then we were on our way to the navy pier. It was really close, and we found it within a few minutes. however, there was no parking within 400 trillion miles. we circled, and circled, and circled, about 25 thousand times or so, but it just wasnt meant to be. mommy, missing the boys and not really caring about the navy pier much, decided it was time to depart chicago. Little did we know, on our trip to the sears tower, we were about 5-10 blocks from the navy pier, totally walking distance. ouch.
So we left. We get on the freeway, and we left chicago. It was a great time, and chicago is a great city, one that i hope to visit again. A place that you need at LEAST a week to check out all the touristy stuff, and another week to do the not touristy stuff, and a lifetime to just be there. Well…thats about it! Rather anti-climactic, but it is what it is, a 26 hour trip to a city 4 hours away.
#so, so, so happy to be back in Michigan. No, not really.
#just ate a slice of leftover chicago pizza. so what if its 2 days old, it’s still good!
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