On the 13th, my wife took our kids and one of her sisters’ kids (she has 3 sisters) to visit her other sisters for what they dubbed “cousin camp 2007″.  For them, it would be a week of swimming, movies and other activities with her family.

My plan was to hang out around the house, watch movies and work.  Luckily for me, Wil called on the 14th and asked if I wanted to come out for a few days since his significant other was on a business trip to Thailand.  I jumped at the chance and we decided that I’d drive out on Tuesday.  For some reason, the price of train tickets almost doubled since my last trip, so I figured if I was gonna drop almost $100, I may as well drive.  That would give me some flexibility on my arrival and departure times and also allow me to take along some extra stuff (like my bike).

The trip to his house was pretty quick — about 3 hours.  I managed to miss traffic and actually detoured so I could take a drive down Lake Shore Drive.   After unpacking, we decided to jump on our bikes and take a ride along the lake shore.  A few miles into our ride, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant on one of the many beaches.  I wish I could remember the name of the place because the food was pretty damn good. 

After dinner, we jumped back on our bikes and continued riding.  We actually rode past Navy Pier and then crossed LSD into Grant Park where Wil started hitting me with trivia.   After a quick stop at the fountain, we headed to Millennium Park where we finally got off our bikes and walked a bit (because we were told we couldn’t ride in the park).  I have to say that Cloud Gate (the bean) was one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen, but hey, whatever floats your boat, right?

After Millennium Park, Wil decided that we should ride our bikes down Michigan Ave.   This involved dodging lots of people, tons of cars, way too many buses, and what seemed like hundreds of impatient cabbies…woohoo!  It was definitely lots of fun — not something I get to do around here.  When all was said and done and we were safely back at Wil’s playing his Xbox, he figured we must have ridden about 14 miles (for those familiar with the area — we started and ended at Wilson St).

The next morning I felt pretty good except for my umm…well, let me put it this way….my bike seat isn’t the most comfortable.
 

We rode our bikes to The Art of Pizza (with me complaining about my butt the whole way).  The pizza was great and, after eating way too much, we hopped back on our bikes and headed to Wrigleyville.  I had been having issues with my pedals since our first ride and wanted to find a bike shop.  Before doing that, we decided to stop at Goose Island to watch the game that was being played across the street at Wrigley Field.   We left after the 5th inning — the Cubs were up 4-1 – well on their way to the 12-1 victory.  Details.  Our next stop was Kozy’s Cyclery.

The town I live in sucks so much, we don’t even have a real bike shop, so this was my opportunity to pick up some stuff I needed (we bought our bikes at Village Bike Shop in Grand Rapids in 98′ and unfortunately don’t get back too often).  Anyway, I picked up some new gloves, some chain lube and some new pedals.  I really love good bike shops that have knowledgeable staff and Kozy’s was no exception.  I hadn’t planned on the pedals, but after one of the guys tried adjusting mine (I was having a hell of a time getting my left foot out), he decided the left pedal was shot.  No big surprise because the pedals were old and kinda beat up.  $70 later, I had a new set of Shimano SPDs and I was good-to-go.  Ok, if that confused anyone, this and this might help.   I’ve been riding with clipless pedals for a long time and I really like the new set.  So much smoother getting in and out now.

From the bike shop, we headed back to Wil’s and relaxed until dinner.

Dinner turned out to be pretty fun.  We hopped on the el and headed into town.  We didn’t have anything planned other than a quick stop so I could buy the kids some t-shirts (I got in trouble the last time I was in Chicago and didn’t bring them anything) and then dinner.  Mmmmm….dinner.  Dinner at Ditka’s was fantastic.

While we were enjoying our dinner, we noticed that it had started raining.  Neither of us considered it a big deal since the station was pretty close.  Well, as luck would have it, we got just a *bit* disoriented and ended up running around in the storm for about 20-30 minutes (yea….it was pretty cool to see the lightning between the buildings and hear the thunder echo through the labyrinth of buildings).   OMG, we were both soaked to the bone, but it was fun.  Thank god the train wasn’t too cold on the ride back because that really could have sucked.

We spent the rest of my time there hanging out, talking and playing Xbox.

Good times.  The more I’m there, the more I can understand his desire to live in Chicago.  It’s a great town with so much to do and see.  I’m looking forward to my next visit!

I actually caught some traffic leaving town and my return trip took about 5 hours, but it wasn’t that big of a deal since I was returning to an empty house.  My weekend was spent watching “man” movies: Pulp Fiction, Some kind of monster, Metallica’s S&M, Clerks and Any Given Sunday.  I did go on an 7.5 mile bike ride around this nasty little town I live in and I put a little work into a book case I’ve been working on, but beyond that, I didn’t do too much more.