Chicago Visit

Jo is in the swing of attending regional meetings and I joined her for the central regional in Chicago.  This was my first visit back to Chicago since my sister's passing and it was a strange visit for me.  It was one year ago that we found out about my sister's cancer and it was really weird being in Chicago and not having dinner with her or traipsing out to another museum (we were working our way through every museum in or near downtown Chicago).  Fortunately, Jo was there and helped keep my thoughts on other happier things.

We also spent the weekend with our friends, John and Linda.  We hit two museums, the Museum of Broadcast Communications and the Illinois Holocaust Museum.  Both excellent museums but with pretty close to polar opposite focuses.  First up was the Broadcast Museum.  After a great lunch of deep dish, Chicago style pizza - yum, yum, and yum - we toured the museum's exhibit on Saturday Night Live.  Was really interesting since it was something Jo and I grew up with during our college and later years.  The exhibit did a good job of showing exactly what goes into making a live show happen once a week along with convincing me that I was glad to have gone into a different career.  That evening we finally got to meet their new grandchild who was just ever so happy to bounce around in Jo's arms.

Saturday after a delicious breakfast of cereal and monkey bread - ok, the monkey bread was delicious, the cereal was just to ease my guilt in eating something so sweet - we headed over to the Illinois Holocaust Museum.  Very, very well done museum and did a excellent job of showing this tragic time in human history.  I would highly recommend it for anyone.  While it is in Skokie and not downtown Chicago, it is worth the extra time to get there.

Later, after we enjoyed a pasta dinner, we settled in for some serious card playing.  Well not really serious, but we did try.  Then it was Sunday and after brunch it was time to head home.  It was great to catch up with John and Linda, check in on all their kids doings, and enjoy some balmy winter weather.  We came home to rain and decided to simply spend the evening catching up on some reading and watching the NFL games - go Eagles (flashing back to our years in Philadelphia).