May 15, 2013 - Beginnings of a trip

May 15 2013 We left our hotel in Chicago, antsy to get going on our trip. Went through the TSA without any problems. Beautiful day today. As I gaze out the window of the plane on our way to Atlanta, the brown fields of the north are giving way to the green fields of the south and southeast USA. Made connection in Atlanta ontime. Flight was uneventful. I did not sleep, but Pam did. I can not sleep on a plane. Flying with Delta. They have flight attendant staff, I believe are based in Atlanta. There slight southern drawl gave them away. They...

May 14, 2013 - Dodging obstacles on the northwest tollway

May 14 2013 Uneventful drive after work to Chicago via the rebuilding Northwest Tollway. It is in various shapes of metamorphic re and deconstruction for quite a ways. Probably will be this way all summer. Staying at the La Quinta Hotel, Part of the Park , Sleep, Fly network. Problem is the Hotel has no record of my reservation. The world turns again. No problem, he had a room left for us and all is well. We catch our plane at 11:30 am tomorrow. Flying out of OHare, on time is always a crap shoot. I don't know how many times we have taken...

May 12, 2013 - Chicago

Nous sommes au Sand Dunes state park (sud est de Chicago) depuis Vendredi soir. Y fait plus "frête" depuis notre arrivée...4 la nuit et 14 le jour...brrrr.... Le camping est superbe, sur le bord du lac Michigan mais avec la météo...c'est moins beau :-) Ici, pas de WiFi, donc pour internet, c'est plus compliqué. Vendredi matin nous nous sommes arrêté au village Amish de Shipshiwana, IN, on a l'impression d'entrer dans un autre monde, des "buggys" noirs partout et des gens habillés dans le costume traditionnel Amish. Au marché de la place on...

May 10, 2013 - A Surprise Trip to Chicago

Dale surprised Pam with a surprise trip to Chicago to celebrate her upcoming 50th birthday. It was so great we decided to create a separate trip blog. Click here to take a look! http://www.mytripjournal.com/jenkschiicago

May 9, 2013 - North to Lincoln Park

Instead of the belly buster breakfast, we started today with a run along the River Walk and then along Lake Michigan shoreline. Running while we're travelling is one of our favourite ways to see a city and this was no exception - a beautiful run. After a coffee, pastry and shower we headed to the Magnificent Mile, a one mile strip lined with all of the well known, expensive shops. This street was also landscaped with bright tulips, a great contrast to the steel and glass buildings. We'd been told by our concierge that we should skip paying...

May 8, 2013 - Architecture and Street Art

Day 2 started with a belly busting breakfast at Eggsperience. Well fueled for a day of sightseeing, we started with a stroll along the River Walk where we enjoyed the spring blossoms before hopping on a boat for the Architectural Cruise. As we moved slowly up the Chicago River, a volunteer architect told us all about the history of Chicago and its wonderful buildings and public spaces. The architecture really is wonderful, especially on a blue sky day like today. Lots of photo ops for Pam! Next stop was Millenium Park, an amazing place with...

May 7, 2013 - A Surprise Trip

Surprise! With her 50th birthday approaching and Dale's request that she keep May 7-10 free, Pam knew that something was up but was kept in suspense until the last minute. The surprise turned out to be a 3 night get-away to Chicago. We've done big city trips for other birthday celebrations and have found that they are a nice change of pace from our normally outdoor, fitness based activities. After doing a bunch of research, Dale decided that Chicago was the place so we hopped on an early evening Westjet flight and arrived in Chicago at...

May 7, 2013 - Day 9: Chicago!

When the alarm went off at 6:00 am, I really wanted to stay in my nice warm bed. But we had a 20-30 drive into Aurora to get to the METRA station. Unfortunately the address I found online for the Aurora station turned out to be incorrect so we missed the express train that we wanted. The express gets to Chicago in less than an hour; the later train (the one we did catch) takes an hour and a half! But we got there! Leaving Union Station, we encountered the kiosk for the double decker/trolley tour. We had used a similar company in Boston and...

May 6, 2013 - Butcha gotta have friends...

Up at 5:00am on our first day, we made it to the gym! After a work out, we spent the next part of the morning eating. The St. Regis offers a buffet and menu breakfast included in the room rate. The meal is spectacular. Foie gras, dim sum, sushi, traditional Balinese plate, and the most amazing fruit juices. We, for better or worse, tried it all. Not everything was a raging success, but the quality was extremely high for the style of breakfast. After almost making ourselves comfortably ill, we headed to the pool which overlooks the ocean....

May 3, 2013 - Chicago to Bali - and everywhere in between

We left for Bali today - a place we somewhat chose on a whim simply because neither of us had been there and we loved Thailand so much (and everyone/everything we read about Bali was only wonderful). Airline miles made this journey to the other side of the world a bit more comfortable, but not any shorter. We flew from O'Hare to Seoul, Seoul to Singapore, and Singapore to Bali over a 36 hour period. We arrived at O'Hare armed with a change of clothes and toothbrushes (and two additional bags we checked through),but were only half prepared...

May 3, 2013 - Holy McAteer!

This evening we visited the McAteer clan. We were invited for dinner at the home of Sherry and Mike Moonan. This could get complicated. Let’s start by saying that Grandma Kathy McAteer Greenhill has four offspring, Jim, Sherry, Kelly and Dan. Sherry is married to Mike Moonan and they have four boys. Kelly is married to Matt Elenteny and they have three boys and a girl. Danny is married to Melissa and they have two girls. In case you haven’t been counting that makes a total of ten grandchildren. As an aside Kathy (who lost her first husband...

May 2, 2013 - Take Me Out to the Ballgame

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Today our usual baseball four attended the Padres vs. Cubs game at Wrigley Field. John Gustafson and I took the Rock Island Metro to LaSalle Street Station and then the Red Line to Addison Street where we met Jim Spivey and Duane Ross. I had obtained good seats in the upper deck behind home plate and we were looking forward to a great view of the game. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate with a temperature of 45 degrees and 20 mph winds directly in our face. We hung in there for seven innings...