Our Great Chicago Adventure - Day 1

[Cinderelley]

Cast of Characters
Me - 37 and proud Navy Mom now
My mother - still sweet 16 ;) and proud Navy Grandma
Kyle - 18, graduating from Boot Camp
Hannah - 18, Kyle's girlfriend.

My day actually started the night before when I went to work at 6 pm. The night dragged on and on. And of course, right before shift change, I had a patient start going bad. I finally made it out of work only 30 minutes late. I raced home, showered, did my last minute packing, and my mom and stepfather picked me up at 8:15. My stepdad dropped us off at the airport and I felt like I was officially on my way to see my son after 9 weeks. I was on cloud 9.

My original plan was to sleep on the plane, but I was too excited. A nun was in the window seat next to me and was kind enough to let me ramble about my son being in the Navy. She also told us about her work here in Phoenix and have people become nuns. It was very interesting. A lot more to becoming a nun than I would have ever guessed. She told us to tell my son Congratulations and Thank you for his service.
Once the plane landed (a little bumpy), our adventure really started. My mother and I decided to go get the rental car while they unloaded the luggage in order to avoid the big luggage rush. I had reserved a full-sized car, but the agent told me they didn't have any available. I was going to have to wait until one came in. I asked how long it would be, and she said try back in half an hour. So, Mom and I went and got our luggage. About 15 minutes after that, our Dodge Charger was ready. I had printed out all our directions on Map Quest, but I also rented a Garmin GPS system. I wanted to try it, and it really came in handy.

[Cinderelley]

Mom was too afraid to drive in a strange city, so she became the Navigator. I handed her the MapQuest directions to guide me to our hotel room. The GPS system wouldn't work in the parking garage. She told me to go out, make a left and then a right. So, off we went. After the right hand turn, she said to find 55th St., and I told her to try to figure out how the GPS system worked. Well, the street numbers were getting smaller and smaller. When we hit 26th St., the gps still wasn't working, and there wasn't any 55th St. to be found. We decided to make a u-turn and go the opposite direction. I followed a van at a left turn, but after two small shops, the street had large "do not enter" signs up. It wasn't big enough to make a u-turn and neither were the parking lots for the shops. I followed the van down an alleyway that had giant car-eating potholes. At the end of the alleyway, I could see a "Dead end" sign, so I made a right onto the only street there. Unfortunately, there was no sign to tell me that it was a one way street, and we were going the wrong way. :stop: We made it out alive and headed back the way we came. About halfway there, my mom got the gps system to work. The first thing it told us was "When it is safe, make a u-turn". :D We were supposed to be looking for I-55, not 55th St. (I swear my mother was a blonde in a previous life.) We were only about two miles away from where we wanted to be when we made the first u-turn. Thankfully, this u-turn was uneventful.

The GPS took us through the part of town with so many fine upstanding citizens that the police had them pulled over ever couple of blocks. ;) Although I loved the paint scheme on the police cars (black with a flag and an eagle), Mom and I didn't venture out of the car.

We finally arrived at the hotel, where we were told that we were upgraded to a room on the 7th floor. Mom and I were very excited to see our upgraded room as we exited the elevator. We should've ran when we saw the "do not enter" sign on the door, but we though someone had accidentally left it there. My key opened the door, so we started to head on in. Surprise, our upgrade was to a room that was already occupied. Thankfully, there wasn't anybody standing there in their birthday suit. :eek: We went back downstairs and told them that we appreciated the thought, but would like to be downgraded to an unoccupied room. They were more than happy to oblige.

Finally, we unloaded our luggage and started to relax. We had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, which was very nice. Then we decided to go to sleep. I called for a 4 am wake-up call the next day in order to be at Kyle's Pass In Review by 6 am. Between being up all night and all day, and the glass of wine I had, I don't even remember falling asleep.

[KylesMom]

What an adventure . . . NOT! You must've flown into Midway Airport, huh?

Hopefully this is the only instance you'll have of being misdirected in a not-real-happy part of town - I hope your hotel stay turns out ok and the rest of the trip is a charm! :mickey:

[Cinderelley]

Yes, we did fly into Midway. Is there that much of a difference between the airports?

[KylesMom]

Yes, unfortunately there is. Midway is great if you're a frequent traveler & know your way around the area - and what immediate areas you need to avoid, which is pretty much all around the airport.

O'Hare Airport borders Rosemont, Illinois which is a big trade show town. Much safer to navigate around!

The big thing here is that Southwest flies in and out of Midway, but doesn't really frequent O'Hare. That's why it's such a popular airport . . .