and then we made it to Chicago

Conrad still thinks - I think! - that I hate his family.  I don't.  Far from it.  And I don't hate his hometown either.  But I have to admit, I don't find it especially fun or interesting to venture up there.  It's like my own hometown - small, centered on a dying industry, brain drain, isolated.  The advantage to going to my home town (twice since 2003, that's it) is that I still know people there.  When we go to Escanaba, we visit no one.  No friends.  Just family.  Lovely family, but as they grow older, we do less and less with them.  I wish we did more.  Ah well.

I am writing this on Sunday night (May 28).  A week ago, Conrad and I flew down from Green Bay to Chicago. 

I love Chicago.  Come on - if you have read this blog in its distant past, you will know that I - we - had a rich, happy life in Chicago.  Ten years in SoCal, and yet, Chicago remains my favourite US city so readily.  Bring me there any time.

We made the rookie mistake of taking the Blue Line

into the city from ORD to our hotel - I say that because we were blithely unaware of service disruptions because of line improvement.  An hour and a half later, which included a shuttle bus between Addison and Western, we made it to the hotel.  And then it was over an hour until we could check in.  We wandered up to Eataly and grabbed an afternoon snack of calamari

and a spritz. 

At long last, though, we checked into the hotel.  Ahhhhhh.

So good to be back in the city no matter the inconvenience!