The Windy City Blew us Away!

When we started the road trip, we decided to spend 3 nights in 2 cities: New Orleans and Chicago. Well New Orleans did not disappoint, and neither did Chi Town.  We had an absolute blast! On the 2nd day, we started it off with some great breakfast at Pancakes Eggsetera.  I got cinnamon raisin french toast and Kristal got banana nut pancakes which were vanilla and very sweet.  For only $7/each we got so much food and everything was delicious! Afterward, we hit up Michigan street, which is apparently where everything in downtown Chicago is.  We wanted to take a architecture boat tour, but they were all sold out for the day when we got there. We opted for a walking tour that showed the chronology of architecture in Chicago.  It went from a restaurant from the late 1800's (post the great fire) and ended with the Trump Tower that just went up last year.  Kristal also hit up the Art Institute to see the Impressionist and American exhibits, while I decided to go to the public library, which was huge and really cool looking from the outside.  It had a giant sculpture of an eyeball outside, which is apparently a huge photo-opp in the city.

After the afternoon activities, we met with one of Kristal's old high school friends and went to Giordano's for their famous stuffed pizza.  They say the small feeds one to two, but the 3 of us were barely able to finish it off. The pizza was stuffed with Canadian Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms, and was reallllllly good.  After that, we went to the Bean, which apparently is one of Chicago's most famous landmarks. Its basically a giantic piece of reflective metal in the shape of a bean. Its was really cool to look up from the inside.  Lastly, we went to the John Hancock building to get drinks on the 96th floor and see the Chicago skyline. The drink lounge had a sub par view but Kristal got some photos of the view in the girls bathroom which Yelp correctly said was the best view in the room.

Today, we decided to go to one of the most famous places in all of the sports world: Wrigley Field. When we woke up, we found out that we would be seeing history, as Lou Pinella announced that he would retire after the game for family reasons.  Upon arrival, we decided on a whim to go to a sandwich place called Lucky's.  Upon arrival, we noticed that Man vs. Food was shot there, where the guy ate 3 double stuffed sandwiches. This might not sound like much, but consider that the sandwich has the meat, fries, tomatoes, and slaw, all stuffed into a 2 pieces of bread. It was artery clogging deliciousness.  The game was alot of fun, with a ton of scoring. Braves rookie sensation Jason Heyward did not disappoint, belting two home runs and led the Braves to a 16-5 win.  After the game, we went to the Ukrainian village, but there wasn't a whole lot to see outside of some cool homes and churches.  We decided to head home, and head to a place that never disappoints: Buffalo Wild Wings. I decided to up the spicy level and get Spicy Garlic, which was a big mistake! I'm definitely going to stick to Honey BBQ from now on.  After some trivia, we played our new favorite arcade game: Big Buck Hunter. I got a few game records in our 2nd round, and fell just short of my goal of tying or beating the bulls score of 41 (I got 39).

Well that's it for Chi Town. Tomorrow we head out to Denver, with a pit stop probably in Nebraska along the way.  Just 5 more days left on the trip!  Thanks for reading.

Homeward Bound

After no time at all, we are already over halfway through the trip and are starting the long journey back to LA. Craziness. In our last day at Philly, we went over to Old City to visit some more historical sites. We went to Betsy Ross's old house, and then to Christ Church. Inside, we sat in the same pews that George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Betsy Ross sat in. Pretty cool stuff.  From there, we headed over to Elfreth Alley, which is boasted as the oldest residential street in the US. It was pretty cute. After that, we grabbed one more lunch with our buddy Tina before we headed out to Cleveland!


The journey was supposed to be about 7 hours, but it took about 10 hours thanks to a trip through Amish country where we got stuck in 1 lane traffic behind a horse drawn buggy. Combine that with a ton of road work, and we were wiped by the end of the day. We were planning on hitting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but read some sub par reviews online, so we decided to skip it. Its a good thing we kept that money too because it went to good use thanks to all the tolls we had to pay. We ended up paying about 22 bucks in tolls again!!! Come on north east wtf guys!  We got to the Chi Town area around 4 or so, and after braving city traffic for an hour and a half, we arrived at our hotel.  We grabbed some food and hit up a couple bars, and called it a night.  We are planning on taking an architectural tour tomorrow before getting some authentic deep dish Chicago Pizza. Can't wait. Thanks for reading.