Sunday, July 1, 2012

Day 23 – July 1 – Chicago, Illinois




Mike needed a couple of days off from writing on the blog, so this is Pat and I’ve volunteered to write the entry for today and tomorrow. Today is one of our shortest days - we spent the night in Milwaukee after theball game. We got up around 9AM, checked out of the hotel, and went to have a good Sunday breakfast. We sat around and realized the calendar has turned a page to July and we are down to the final week of this epic adventure. We still have a long way to go and many miles to cover. We needed some down time after going through so much territory in such a short time. It was tiring - to say the least - to drive from Washington DC to Milwaukee in a week - by way of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Miami, Tampa and Baltimore. Lots of memorable things happened, and we got to see a lot of the country. Compared to the rest of the trip, our drive from Milwaukee to Chicago for the Sunday afternoon game was a snap. Just point the old family truckster - aka, the Caravan - down I-94 and in 2 short hours we were at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field. Got to walk around the neighborhood, and the park is right in the middle of a neighborhood. You see TV from Waveland and Addison, and it's very intimate and very closely bunched areas. We wanted to get there early enough as they were giving away Cubs Custom Earbuds to the first 10000 adults 21 and over. I'm sure that Mike & I will put them to good use when Steve or Shawn are driving and we don't want to hear the music that is playing on the satellite radio. I was expecting to see an old, beat up park when we got inside, and it was, in my opinion, much better looking than Fenway Park. That is just an opinion. The ivy on the outfield walls really does lend itself to a nice look. During the 7th inning stretch I could’ve sworn I heard the ghost of Harry Carey (A One, a Two, a Three…Take Me Out to the Ball Game…). And it could be due to it being a Sunday, but the crowd wasn't as rowdy as I was expecting. Of course, playing the Astros brings out the mellow in any crowd. We are now on our way to Pittsburgh with an expected arrival time shortly after midnight, but have stopped in South Bend Indiana, home of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame to have a good dinner and send this blog post out. I will pick this up when we wake up tomorrow morning once we’ve reached the confluence of the .. whatever three rivers it is in Pittsburgh (yes, I know it's the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers - I stayed awake in 9th grade geograhpy). Obviously I did fine at geography, not so good at spelling.

1 comment:

  1. Ahh Wrigley field, truly one of the great ballparks ever created. Truly a special placew to watch a ball game at.

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