KyleRhea: Chicago February 2010---1000...986 to go!

On Christmas, I receive a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I didn’t have any idea why I would be getting them from my friend’s husband!!! It turns out that he had the most thoughtful idea to purchase me a plane ticket to Chicago for Stacie’s Christmas gift. As soon as I got them, I was supposed to let Stacie know…I hope she wasn’t too disappointed when she got her gift news. I decided that since I live in burning hot Florida I was going to visit as soon as possible so I could take advantage of the freezing cold Chicago weather. I went in February to visit.

I checked into the Jacksonville airport, got through security, and hung out a little looking around in the shops. I went to my gate to wait to board. I wanted to get organized by putting my driver’s license away, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I started looking for it everywhere. I looked in the bathrooms, in the shops, where I bought coffee. I went to security and they looked through every single little bin. No one had turned it in to lost and found. At this point I had to call Kent to overnight my passport to Stacie’s house. Someone must have stolen it. I had every intention of hitting the bar scene in Chicago and this was definitely going to put a damper on those plans. Oh well!

Stacie picked me up at the airport and we stayed in downtown Chicago at a hotel. Stacie was using her little technology device to help her navigate us to the hotel, but somehow we ended up on an underground road and the device was not recognizing where we were so we ended up going in a few circles. At this point we were running very late to our first 1000 places stop, The Second City. Our stupid key was not working to the hotel room and Stacie had to keep running downstairs to get the key remade. Finally, after realizing that our hotel room had two doors and the key only worked on the one that we were not at, we got in, changed, hit the concierge bar and caught a cab.

The great thing about going to Second City with Stace is that we grew up LOVING Chris Farley….”Brothers don’t shake hands, brothers gotta hug!!!” I still say shnykies all the time. Tommy Boy was our favorite. It was really cool being able to share this experience with Stace. Stacie and I did laugh and loved the comedy show. It wasn’t Chris Farley but still funny.

After the show, we went to the strip of bars, but I could only get into one without my i.d. It was a cool place and it had food so I was happy. Stace and I got to catch up on everything and we met some really drunk Scottish guy that had really bad breath. It was fun.

The next day we did most of our Chicago site seeing. We walked around Millennium Park for awhile. We went to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is so much to see there...it would take four entire days to actually get though all the art there. We went to the Magnificent Mile. Then we went to her house to meet up with Ken and pick up the girls, Madeline and Bridget. Even though Woodland, Illinois is not on the 1000 places to see, I think it should be. Groundhog Day is my favorite movie of all time and this is where it was filmed. This was my favorite part of the whole trip besides taco night!

This is where Bill Murray and Andie Macdowell danced!

Uh Hello?! One of the places Phil (Bill Murray) committed suicide!!

At Ken and Stacie's house after we picked up the girls, I had my first Chicago Style Pizza and it was deee-licious!!

Unfortunately, I was there such a short time that I didn't get to do all of the Chicago 1000 Places. So watch out Stace...I will be coming again. It looks like June is the best time to come with all the Chicago festivities.

10. Chicago Comedy Scene (The Second City)