Life at our house has been crazy the past six weeks or so, with family things and work so I was REALLY looking forward to getting out of town for a couple of days with my daughter Katie and my friend, Cindy and her daughter, Joanna. Time to de-stress, relax, sleep in-WRONG!!!!!
My friend Cindy lives in Peoria, so we had planned to meet along I-80 so that we only had one car in Chicago. Katie and I got off late-no surprise to those who know me-but it was mainly the fault of the DOWNPOUR we were having at the time. So we head down I-80, 30 minutes behind schedule. Still POURING (I have to use caps to EMPHASIS how bad the conditions were)we hit construction. Yuck. Cindy calls-they are at their location and we are still 45 minutes away. FINALLY roll into the Flying J truckstop in LaSalle, Il and there they are. Such good friends!!!!!
We pile in my car and we are on our way!!!!!!! Not so fast. We are planning to pick up I-39 to the tollway but NO, Cindy (meaning ME) is heading south and not North like she should be. Were we talking too much?!?!?! After trucking along for about 20 miles, we make an illegal U-turn and we're on our way again. Things are going well, not much rain or construction. Oh and there was the I-pass that I drove through but that's no bid deal, right?? We take our exit to Oakbrook and we are on our way to the mall. Not so fast. We are driving along in a soft rain, in stop and go traffic and have you figured out where I'm going with this??? BUMP! And that's all I'm going to say because our insurance companies are still chatting.
Finally we are at Oakbrook and we see Nordstrom in the distance. All is right with the world again. For the most part at least. Because we are now about 3 hours behind schedule, we power shop for a couple of hours and then head downtown to our hotel to get ready for dinner and Second City Comedy Club. We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard on E. Ontario and I highly recommend it. Clean and great customer service. While in line at Starbucks a young lady overheard us discussing where to have dinner and she suggested a place called Big Bowl. Excellent mandarin food!! And really good drinks:)
The food was so good and the nice manager, on hearing it was our first visit, sent over a complimentary appetizer. Something with mushrooms that Katie actually shared!!
Here are my friend Cindy and Joanna.
If you are a watcher of Monday Night Football, you will probably get a glimpse of this young lady. She is a member of the three time National College Dance Team from Tennessee and they were asked to perform the dance for Monday Night Football. Joanna even choreographed most of the dance herself.
After dinner, we grabbed a cab (no Bone Collector driver, thank goodness) and headed to the show. I had seen Second City before but the others hadn't. They weren't thrilled with our seating arrangement. Just a tad cozy. I ordered the girls this and it helped a bit:)
It was mostly ice.
The show was HILARIOUS!!!! And very naughty! The 12-14 year old boys next to use I'm sure heard things they've never heard before. Or maybe they had, but the woman with them was mortified. Don't think she got the memo on the content of this show. Fun evening!
Got a early start to shopping the next day and really had a nice time.
The weather was hot but sunny and breezy. Customer service was great in every store we were in and we were in a lot!! I bought a jar of face cream and Katie got the rest! We were worn out and really enjoyed out lunch at where else, The Cheesecake Factory. Here are the girls waiting for their table.
But, like all good things, it had to come to and end. And we took a shorter route to LaSalle. Even though we had a very bumpy start to the trip, we had a great time. I just hope it isn't another year before we can do it again!