After months of correspondence, comparing dates, event planning, and back-and-forth messages, the momentous meeting of the Oblivious and FreezinRafiki clans took place at 5:22 p.m. on the evening of July 24, 2011. (Ok, I didn’t look at my watch. It was somewhere around dinner time.) Reporters, officials and poet laureates gathered to witness the event transcribed the historic first words exchanged as follows:
“Hey.”
“How ya doin’?”
What, you were expecting Shakespeare or something? Given how hungry we were, I’m amazed we had that much conversation. I was lucid enough to remember their names: Barry, his wife Bambi, their daughter Madison and son Evan. We’d gotten to know them a little over the past year through the DISboards and Facebook, and it was great to finally meet in person. The first order of business was finding a place to eat dinner. Having researched the area extensively, Julie and I wanted to make a lasting impression by surrounding Barry and Bambi with high class and luxury. So I suggested we walk around the block from the hotel to
Al’s #1 Italian Beef Sandwiches.
Sorry, I wouldn’t know high class and luxury if it smacked me upside the head and took my lunch money.
We’d seen this place featured in Food Wars on the Travel Channel as part of a battle of Chicago’s Italian beef sandwich joints. Hey, it sounded better than McDonalds.
And I think it was. Apparently, the proper way to get the sandwich is to cover it in guardin—gardin—jardin—I don’t know how you say it. Some sauce with lots of peppers in it. Then they take the entire sandwich, roll and all, and dip it into the juice from the beef. I think I just lost a year of my life typing that sentence.
Not being a huge fan of peppers, I just got a standard roast beef sandwich and hot dogs for the kids. Barry found a roast beef sandwich on the menu that had a sausage hidden inside it. Not sure how I missed that one, but it looked good. In any case, it all tasted fine to me and Julie, although I don’t know if we’d rush to go again. But it was fine. Not sure how Barry and Bambi liked it, but if they thought it was awful, they hid their disgust pretty well. I believe at that point both they and Julie were training to run a 5K race, and I’m sure this meal helped that endeavor immensely.
The kids got along as though they’d spent the entire summer together. Madison is a sweetheart, and Evan is a ball of energy. Together, they are the friendliest kids on the planet. I’m pretty sure that if you gave them enough time, they’d have Darth Vader and Nurse Ratched holding hands and singing, or at least playing catch in the backyard.
We made a quick stop back at the hotel and discovered that Barry’s family was in the room right next to ours. So far, they seemed like a really cool family, so we treated this development as being very favorable and only slightly stalker-ish. At least we knew we could bang on the wall if the neighbors got annoying.
There was a knock on the door, and the Rafiki's strode in bearing gifts. Ok, we were definitely on board with the neighboring room thing now. Madison had a brand new American Girl doll for Sarah, and Evan had
Lego sets for our boys. Barry and Bambi also brought us a taste of Wisconsin: cheese and (root) beer. This might have been the coolest cheese ever: cheddar with bacon in it. Yup, I said bacon. Nature's perfect food. And they also gave us a sample of chocolate cheese. I'd never heard of that before. But it tasted like rich chocolate fudge, so it got our stamp of approval.
When we were planning this visit, I had made a lot of noise about trying to eat breakfast at
The Machine Shed, a Midwest chain we'd also seen on the Travel Channel. We had put it on our list as a place to visit after seeing their cinnamon rolls, which are as big as your head and come with a butcher knife to help with serving it. Unfortunately, the closest one was about 2 hours outside the city and we couldn't find a way to make it work with the plan. I learned that Barry and Bambi had actually driven out to one just to get a cinnamon roll and bring it to us in the city, only to find they'd sold out for the day. But I'm including this story just to show what kind of people they are. Which is to say, extremely cool.
I got CTA transit day-passes from the front desk so we could have unlimited rides on the buses and trains for 24 hours. This would cover all of the traveling we needed to do in the city for the rest of our stay there. Then we all set out for our final destination for the evening: the
John Hancock Observatory.
Armed with Barry’s Blackberry and our CTA passes, we set off. It was about 13 blocks from our hotel to the Hancock Tower. We could walk it, or take a leisurely bus ride on route 36, as shown in the
official CTA city bus map. This would save us a lot of walking. Our hotel was at the corner of Ohio and LaSalle Streets, and the 36 route had a stop just a couple blocks over and to the south on Illinois St. No problem.
We set off, thoroughly enjoying our various conversations. In just a few minutes, we reached Illinois St. No problem.
We looked around. There was no shelter. No sign. No bus stop marked anywhere. Houston, we have a problem.
Sure enough, a city bus turned the corner and zoomed right past us down the street. No stop.
The kids looked at the adults. Bambi and Julie looked at the men. I looked at Barry. Barry stared at his Blackberry. Naturally, the fact that a bus stop does not exist where the map says it does is somehow the Dads' fault. I guess it may not have helped when we had read the map earlier and I loudly proclaimed that it would be easy to find and we didn't need to ask for directions.
New plan! We'll walk to Michigan Avenue, then catch one of the many routes that drive up that road. So, we headed east. Looks easy on the map, right?
We walked several blocks, then under a bridge. The kids were having fun, Barry and I were talking, and Bambi and Julie were making fun of us and giving us dirty looks. All was once again right with the world. Until we saw the signs for St. Clair St.
St. Clair? But that's...further east than we wanted.
That bridge? That was Michigan Avenue, crossing over our heads.
Time to turn around.
At long last, we reached the Magnificent Mile (felt like we'd walked about 3) and a bus shelter. The kids were happy to sit down. Note the helpful map in the corner of the shelter.
We had to wait through several other routes before our bus showed up. From there, it was an amazingly easy ride up the road to the Hancock Tower.
So in the end, we made it to our destination, everyone was safe, and we didn't need to ask for directions from anyone. Success all around!
Outside the building, Barry graciously offered to lie on the ground and get artsy pictures of our kids. We graciously allowed him to do so. I think a few people felt bad for him while he was doing this and tossed a couple bucks into his camera case.
Here's our two princesses:
We paid our admission and piled into the elevator. I think it was here that I noticed Barry's t-shirt.
"Did you wear that for me?" I asked. He just grinned.
The view at the top was spectacular. You could see the skyline to the south, Navy Pier and Lake Michigan to the west, the shoreline heading up to Wisconsin to the north, and the sunset to the west. They also had what was billed as "Chicago's Only Open-Air Skywalk", but that was just a screened-in hallway that didn't really do much for any of us. We basically circled the building over and over, taking lots of pictures and watching as the day turned to dusk and the city lit up for the evening. And the kids delighted in making us chase them around as they swung from every handrail they could find. At least they didn't break anything in the souvenir shop.
The kids also found a photo stop where they could pretend to be hanging outside, washing the windows. Sarah decided to be the supervisor, I guess.
We didn't go up in the Building Formerly Known As The Sears Tower. Barry and Bambi have done that one and said they preferred that building to the Hancock Tower. I guess we'll just have to come back to Chicago so we can compare.
Another Christmas card shot?
Our hotel is the building up and to the left from the McDonalds here. I think I can see someone messing with the coolant system on Barry's van:
Let's watch the city turn on the lights...
One final comment before closing: let it be known far and wide that Bambi is a Photo Ninja. Her powers of disguise are unparalleled. We looked through all of our pictures upon returning home and didn't have a single picture of her. That was pretty amazing. Thankfully, Barry got a nice group shot of us at the Observatory. And every single one of us has our eyes open and is smiling, which I think is fairly miraculous.
By this time, we were all tired. The kids were still used to Eastern time, so it felt even later to us. We took a bus back down Michigan Avenue and then walked the 6 or 7 blocks to the hotel. We did not look at one map. We did not have any issues or problems or need to ask for directions. Everything was perfect and worked exactly the way it should. And we did not receive any compliments. So now Barry knows what it's like to work for the DOT.
Coming Up Next: The men and women decide they want nothing to do with each other and separate. At least until after lunch. And I wasn't there for the girls' activities, so I'll just make up that part of the report as I go.
Yeah, blame the electronic device!
