With some Continental travel vouchers that would expire on Memorial Day, we considered places to take a weekend getaway trip. Looking at the Dynamo schedule, we saw they'd be in Chicago on May 17th to play the Fire at Toyota Park and we decided that Chicago was as good a place as any! And an excellent decision it was!
We didn't have a lot of time, so we narrowed our "must do" list down to just a few things. First off was finding some good Chicago-style pizza and we headed for Lou Manalti's downtown as soon as we could after arriving on Friday night. This ain't Pizza Hut pizza, with the layers somewhat reversed - crust, then cheese, then sauce. And it bakes up really thick. Forks only here!
On Saturday morning we headed for the Sears Tower to get a look around from the tallest building in North America. What a view!
Then on to Navy Pier where we had lunch at the Billy Goat Grill, made famous by John Belushi and SNL back in the 80's.. "Cheezborger, cheezborger. Chips, no fries!"
Next we took a half-hour speed boat ride on the Seadog taking us up and down the lakefront to get a seaside view of Chicago. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, but the temperature did drop by about 10 degrees out on the water. A ride on the ferris wheel topped off our visit to the pier.
There weren't many of us wearing Dyamo Orange in Toyota Park that night, but we must have done something right as we cheered the team on to a 2-1 victory. Patrick was completely embarrassed by his old man's fan-atic behavior, but as I told him, it's a parent's duty to embarass their children!
After the game we went back downtown for a very fine steak dinner at Gibsons Steakhouse to celebrate the victory, Patrick's 17th birthday on the 15th, our 24th anniversary on the 12th and Mother's Day on the 11th.
Sunday morning was up early to catch the morning flight back, but we really squeezed a great trip into our 36 hours in Chicago!
