Midwest Vacation: #1

I've been on vacation for a week and it's been great.

I flew to Chicago last Wednesday...well, with a brief, unanticipated stop in Salt Lake City. We were about an hour into the 4-hour flight from Oakland to O'Hare when the pilot announced that because of a valve malfunction, all the onboard water had been lost overboard. Oops! They decided that we really needed water for flushing the toilets and washing the hands so we had to fill up in Salt Lake. It took about an hour to land, determine the problem, fix it, acquire more fuel and take off again. I did get to see the snow-capped Grand Teutons and the big salty lake. I wish I had gotten my camera out.

I also later wished I had borrowed my seatmate's cellphone and made a call to Sal who was picking me up. She was driving down from MN but did have her phone in the car. She didn't bother checking the status of my flight so drove around the airport for an hour before finally deciding to park and find a restroom. She was just checking the arrivals board when I found her in baggage claim. We headed out into the cold, cold Chicago night and our fancy room at the Hilton Suites.

My folks had arrived earlier in the day so we called them to arrange a shared breakfast the next morning in our suite. They arrived with some egg, Canadian bacon, muffin sandwiches which we matched with the apples and plums Sal had brought from Costco. My dad's birthday was Friday and I wanted to go shopping for a present with my mom. She suggested some new dress shirts so we left my dad at the hotel and headed for the fancy mall next door.

It was just a little too fancy for us so we set out in search of the Men's Wearhouse we were told was nearby. We didn't find it and were about to head elsewhere when I asked a woman in the car next to us in the left-turn lane. She confirmed it was just where we were headed. It wasn't. And we got caught in a railroad-crossing traffic jam. We gave up again and headed for Borders.

And, of course, right there on the side of the road was a Big & Tall Men's Clothing Store. Just the kind of store we were looking for. And they were open. And they had lots of pretty dress shirts to choose from. So we agreed on a couple, bought them and were about to leave the store when Sal sadly realized that she had locked her car keys inside her car -- along with her cellphone. Fortunately, she had her AAA card in her wallet in her jeans pocket so made a really long call and finally got someone to come out and open the car. In the meantime, Mom and I had found the short-sleeved dress shirts and decided Dad needed one of those as well. He's a lucky, lucky guy.

Anne, Don and Jordan arrived that afternoon and Anne needed to get some gift wrap for her presents for the new baby. I volunteered to go out with her while the others watched a movie on the portable DVD player Sal had borrowed from Mike and had hooked up to our hotel TV (pretty cool, huh?). Anne thought for sure she had seen a Target back the way they had come so out we went. And kept going. And going. And going. I swear we drove 20 minutes to this Target. We had fun choosing some greeting cards and she found a wine box that looked cool and was just the right size to fit all her outfits in. We got back to the suite and pretty soon the others left for Love Feast at a local church.

Sal and I started watching Eragon but about halfway through we realized we were really hungry so we went search of dinner. We had seen a restaurant next to the Borders just around the corner. So we stopped for some books first then had dinner at J. Alexander's. It was a bit pricey but the filet I got was amazing. I think the Alex salad that Sal got with her burger was almost as good. I wanted to go back there again. Maybe some day...