My 2010 Vacation: Day 1

A week ago today, me and my old lady headed down to Chicago to take separate vacations. I would be staying 4 nights in a fancy hotel while attending a conference called Celebrate Your Life while my beloved would be spending quality time with her only sibling. We left around 10am in my compact Hyundai Elantra. I'd picked out two dozen CD's the day before to pass the time; it's a six hour drive to Chi-town.

As we left MedCity, I wished that there was something more comfortable that I could rest my head against. *insert joke* It took me a minute or two before I realized that there were two pillows in the back; I always bring my own when going out of town. I grabbed the feather one and placed it behind my neck. Ahh, yes. This would do nicely.

It was a brilliant sunny day as we left Minnesota and entered Wisconsin. Wisconsin is quite an interesting name for a state if you think about it. It has both the words "con" and "sin" in it. I hope this is merely a coincidence.

A couple hours later, my wife said she'd like to stop for a quick bite, so we found a Subway. She initially wanted McDonalds, but I shot her down saying that she could have some junk food that evening. My wife had a six-inch and then took a breather. We were now more than halfway to our destination.

I'd told myself over the past few days that I wanted this vacation to last. None of this crap about how the vacation had flown by. Many times for me, the first day or two will go by nice and slow, then will pick up steam (kinda like what older people say their experience of life is in general).

We headed back to the car and continued on. Knowing that Illinois is a toll state, we'd gotten several dollars worth of change to give to the toll attendants as we steadily made our way into the Land of Lincoln.



Some of the stops have actual people manning them, others have a little container that you throw your money in. A number of years ago, there was a toll booth attendant stationed at her post and I actually threw the money at her. I quickly said I was sorry, that I was so used to doing this on prior occasions that I couldn't stop my arm from making the familiar motion.

We'd been warned that there was some significant road construction taking place in Illinois and finally hit it mid-afternoon. There were moments when we weren't moving at all, but I took it in stride. The first seminar wasn't taking place until the following morning.

We arrived at our destination, the Westin hotel, at around 5pm. We checked in and by that time, were ready for some non-healthy food. One of the joys of going to Illinois this time was trying out some restaurants that I'd never been to. The one I was most looking forward to checking out was Popeye's. Ever since I saw Adam Sandler's "Little Nicky" in 2000, in which he said that Popeye's was "fucking awesome", I'd wanted to experience its pleasures.



Before entering the eatery, I went to a trash can to throw out an empty bottle when I noticed the weekend paper in there. Always up for getting new reading material, I dug it out and went in to place my order. We each ended up ordering a two piece with corn on the cob. I'd been told the week before that Popeye's chicken was better than KFC's, but had difficulty believing it. Well, turns out they were right. The skin was heavenly and I'd not had corn in quite some time, perhaps because it looks the same going out as coming in.

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at the local mall where my girl got a frappucino from Caribou Coffee. Once back in our fifth floor room, I began unpacking and took a bath while reading the latest book I'd checked out from the library, "Kick Me". Thirty minutes later, I put my robe on and headed to the bed. *edited for content* We went to bed after that. I hoped I'd be able to get enough sleep to not be tired the next day. There are few things worse than spending mucho money on an experience and not being able to enjoy it.