June 9, 2011

We packed up the car and headed to Illinois for the weekend.  After fighting through the busy Friday afternoon Chicago traffic (it appears that Chicago no longer has rush hours, but rather rush days.  Boy do they have traffic), we arrived at my sister's place just off Navy Pier.  Unfortunately for me, Jo and my sister decided they best way to spend Friday was doing some serious clothes shopping so Jo could buy a few work outfits.  So off to Water Tower Place we headed where we proceeded to spend two hours looking at women's clothes - yipee.  To cap it all of, Jo never actually purchased anything.  I must admit the usual male lack of understanding on how you could spend two hours trying on clothing and come out with nothing.  Of course, the overwhelming number of choices in a typical department stores women's clothing area might have something to do with that.

After that we did settle in for some great Chicago style deep dish pizza which almost made up for two hours of standing around in a women's clothing department trying to act semi-interested.  Saturday we hit the lakefront for our morning run where we discovered it had become hazy, hot, and humid overnight.  After a cooling shower and breakfast at Yolk - great pancakes, don't bother with the bagels - we walked over to Printer's Row for a book fair.  Lots of books for sale, but between the crowds and the heat, not the most ideal environment for wanting to buy much.  Although, Jo and my sister each managed to find a few treasures - maybe that was to make up for the absence of buying anything during Friday night's shopping outing.  Afterwards, we walked back through Grant Park and then landed up at my sister's place to enjoy some air conditioning and water.

We capped Saturday off by attending a high school graduation party for the son of our good friends, John and Linda.  It was nice to meet John and Linda's friends and get a glimpse of their life in the Chicago suburbs.  Also, after a brief rain shower, the weather turned a bit milder and less humid.  After eating way too many desserts, we hit the road to arrive home, tired but glad for the fun weekend we had visiting everyone.  Sunday morning, after our run of course, we bought and planted some annual flowers to spruce up the pots at the front of the house and caught up on some needed sleep.  We also started to prepare for our upcoming garage sale this weekend, which will be the highlight for next week's posting.  Then all too soon it was time to get ready for another week of work - for Jo at least...