Tuesday, August 3, 2010

We made it to Chicago!

We left for Chicago at 8:30am.  Weather was great, sunny all day!  We stopped in Lodi, Wisconsin to have lunch.  We ate at the Dolphin Bar and Grill.  I finished driving from Lodi to Deerfield, Illinois.  We went through 5 toll ways.  That was an interesting process.  We don't have toll ways in Minnesota.  We didn't run into traffic until the last few miles to our hotel.  Dan, one of the guys that came with us is sick.  He was up all night last night.  He is hoping to feel better tomorrow.

The hotel we are staying at is beautiful.  It is the Hyatt Regency Deerfield.  My room is huge.  Our UL conference is held at our hotel for the next 2 days, so that makes it convenient. 

We ate at a Chicago style pizzaria tonight call Lou Malinati's.  The salad was awesome. 

Here are the lessons/thoughts for the day:

  • Billboards announcing Fuddruckers take exit 171, start showing up 60 miles before the exit.
  • If you have to stop at the rest area to throw-up, it is okay to use the bushes instead of messing up the bathroom (according to Dan)
  • When you look up restaurants on the GPS, pay attention to the arrow direction because you don't want to go backwards to find a place to eat.
  • In Illinois, they have signs along the highway that tell you if you hit a construction worker in a construction zone it will cost you $10,000 and you will spend 14 years in jail. 
  • Dan asks "How much longer?" every 5-7 minutes (I have 3 kids, and they don't even ask that question that often).  At one point he accused us of lying to him and saying we told him 1 more hour 20 minutes before that.  We just chalked it up to him being out of sorts because he was sick.
  • When you throw money in the toll way bucket, make sure all the coins make it in the bucket.  When you don't, the line up of 14 cars and semi's will honk at you for your retarded move.
  • When they end up giving your deep dish pizza to another table, they don't charge you for the pizza.
  • The locust are so loud outside, it is hard to have a conversation and hear the other person.
  • There were 40 people waiting to get into the restaurant we had dinner at. I asked a couple a question about the loud noise (the locusts) and inevitably, they couldn't speak English.  Oh well.
  • Here's one you probably didn't know.  When you drive in Lodi, Wisconsin the big sign says "Home of Susie the Duck."  Who is Susie the Duck???
I am just winding down and plan to get to bed early.  Have a great week and enjoy the sunshine!

1 comment:

  1. google Suzie the Duck, it is the towns nickname and the little story is cute.

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