Chicken in the Car and the Car Won’t Go

Nov 17

Chicken in the Car and the Car Won’t Go… What’s that? Chicago.

Our time in Dayton, Ohio was finished, it was time to make our way up North to Chicago. The time we planned to spend there was going to be short, and we were way out of budget so we needed to be cheap. We were staying with our good friend Sarah, and arrived late Tuesday night. We found a free parking spot a street over from her apartment, the only catch was that we had to move the car before 7am street sweepers came through. She prepared us a delicious pasta dish and we watched President Obama win the Presidential Election.

The next morning we woke up early and were able to move our car onto her street and park in a spot a car had just left. Lucky! Since we found ourselves full of energy, we decided to go ahead and begin our day. Sarah prepared us delicious everything bagels and coffee, we layered up, hopped the metro and rode all the way downtown… Wait… wait, that didn’t happen. We drank our coffee, and we discussed the cost of the metro ($11 total for the two of us, all day rides) and decided that we were so over budget that we would just walk downtown.

Sarah’s apartment is about a 30 minute car ride downtown. Walking? An hour and a half. So I layered up because I know how much I hate being cold and we made our way to the Bean. Since we were walking there, I made sure to check out places we could stop on the way so it wouldn’t be a straight 4.4 mile walk.

Our first stop was a small lilly pond right next to Lincoln Park Zoo called Alfred Caldwell Lilly Pool. It was absolutely beautiful! The Zoo was next door, and free. We saw lions, and tigers, and bears – Oh My! Adrian jumped the fence to get a close up photograph of a sleeping leopard. He woke up looking mighty hungry and Adrian looked to be the special on the menu. Lucky for him, he jumped back over the fence and survived only suffering from hungry stares.

After the Zoo we began our long walk to the Bean, downtown Chicago area. Since we were starting to get hungry we found a Groupon for a lunch spot and stopped at Old Town Burger. The burger was pretty good, we probably could have split one. Although we ate so much that we stayed full for hours.

Only a short walk away from the restaurant we finally made it to the Bean. It started getting dark, so we hurried our exploring. All that walking in the cold was very exhausting, but there were so many things we would have missed if we had rode the metro or the bus!

Walking about 6+ miles helped us decide that maybe we would throw down the $2.50 each for the bus ride back to her apartment. Worth it. Our feet and legs and bodies ache so bad! We definitely will sleep really well tonight. Tomorrow we have a short hop, skip, and a jump away to Michigan to visit my Grandma. We will be stationed there for a few days.All in all, the whole day was a blast with Sarah! It was jammed packed with adventure and laughter. And of course a Chicago style deep dish pizza before we flew the coop.