Day Five - Chicago IL to Wheeling WV

We woke in Chicago on the 5th day of our trip. We both woke early and spent some time online. Or in my case, screaming at the CRAPPY internet signal in our room. Dad's machine didn't see to have any trouble staying connected, but I got booted CONSTANTLY. Hence the limited amount of blogging that occurred.

We hung out for a bit because I was hoping to connect with a friend of mine. We used to work together and spent 7-8 hours every day about 3 feet from each other. Thank goodness we became friends! ;) Alas, my dear friend and I weren't able to get together. She's busy teaching philosophy while completing her Ph.D. Yeah, she's super smart like that. ;) Dad & I eventually headed out to get some breakfast. We had managed to score a room at the Best Western down on Grant Park - awesome location! We ended up in a smoking room, but thankfully it wasn't too bad. Breakfast that day was at DDD location #2 - White Palace Grill. I'll let Dad tell you about that too. The DDD is kind of his thing. ;)

After breakfast we went for a walk down past the aquarium (which Dad says is the coolest one ever - sharks!), along the harbor and so on. Lake Michigan was incredible! I've never been at a lake where all you see at the horizon is water at the curve of the earth. So awesome!

We needed to check out of the hotel, so we grabbed our stuff and then drove north along the lake for a few miles to check out the view. For lunch we hit up Al's for Italian beef sandwiches. SO GOOD. Also a Dad thing, but not DDD! I'll let him fill you in.

Dad had made plans for us to go out to dinner in Indiana with his lovely mother-in-law, Rosemary. We got a little confused about what side of town she lived on and ended up WAY later than we planned. Oh well! Life happens. We just rolled with it. Unfortunately, something happened earlier this week and R wasn't able to hear us at all. :( We weren't about to let that stop us though! We went to dinner armed with a note pad, pen and a video camera. We got some great stuff. Hopefully it will be ready later today. It's sooooooooo good!

We'd thought about staying in Columbus OH, that night but there was some concern about bed bugs (the state has had a major outbreak recently) so we ended up leaving western Indianapolis about 9:30pm.

We made it to Wheeling WV (barely!) and pulled into our hotel at 3am. I thought that this one was the nicest we've stayed at so far. And go figure, it's the one we're in for barely 9 hours! We were thrilled to have found it. We thought we'd be forced to go into PA, and were pleasantly surprised to find a bit of West Virginia first!

And then we collapsed.