Road Trip to Chicago – Part 3 & 4

Here is how the rest of the trip from Chicago to Columbus, OH went after the conference ended. Sorry, this has taken so long but I was in Buffalo, NY for one of my best friends wedding and just after I got back home to DC my mother went into the hospital. I will talk about that another time.

I stayed up way to late on Tuesday night go for drinks and Chicago deep dish pizza with Maria, Derek, Jeremy, and Dan at Giordano’s Pizza. It was interesting that between the five of us we ordered three small deep dish pizza’s. Dan ordered a sausage and cheese, Derek ordered a pineapple, ham, and I’m not sure what else Hawaiian style pizza, and I ordered just a plain cheese. Jeremy and Maria both were going to try some of ours since they were not that hungry. Once we placed our order the waiter told us it would be 40 minutes since they made their pizzas fresh for each order.

We were all like 40 minutes how can it take that long. After talking about it, it made sense since you have like and inch of cheese in each pizza and to cook it through it would have to low and slow so not to burn the crust. I suggested to Derek to time it to see how close to 40 minutes it would be. We kept talking about a whole lot of different things and after about30 minutes the waiter brought plates, knives, and extra napkins.

Finally the pizzas arrived so we could get at them. Jeremy even commented that he might be able to eat a whole slice now that he was hungry from waiting. Derek looked at his watch and it had been exactly 40 minutes from the time the waiter had left until he brought us our pies. I guess clients should listen to the people doing work for them like we ended up doing with the waiter. Most times the professionals know what they are talking about. We tried to eat as much pizza as we could between us and we ended up with just under two pizzas worth of food left to be boxed up and taken with us.

The next morning I got up, by about 7:00 AM, got dressed and walked over to the conference hotel and asked the concierge where they would suggest for a good breakfast at mom and pop type place. She suggested I go to Mary’s Cafe’. It was a great little place just a few blocks from the hotel. I ordered a cheese omelet with home fries, toast, and OJ, for under like $8.00 not including tip.

Once I got done with breakfast I headed out down Michigan Ave. to take pictures of the “BEAN” in Millennium Park. This a great art sculpture that looks like a giant mirrored bean. After taking about 25 photos I walked over to the “L” and took a ride for a few stops and turned around and came back to where I started so I did not get lost. It was cool riding over the street and on such an old and rickety tracks.

After all that I went back to the conference hotel to cool of f some before heading to Giordano’s Pizza to pick up the three frozen half baked cheese and pepperoni pizza’s for my sister, brother-in-law, and my three nephews. Once I got back to my hotel I finished packing, got the car, paid my bill and headed to Columbus, OH.

The trip was pretty uneventful. I did not know there were so many Wal-Mart’s in the mid-west. Got to Columbus around 7:30 PM. I called ahead so they could heat up the oven so we could put the pizzas in as soon as I got there, since it was a school night and my nephews needed to go to bed.

The next morning I woke up around 7:00 AM and went downstairs to sit with my oldest nephew while he ate breakfast. He asked if I would walk with him to the bus stop. I said sure no problem, his younger brothers heard this since they were now awake and asked if I would do the same for them. Again I said no problem, not realizing that they did not catch the bus until like 8:45 AM. I guess that ruled out and early departure from Ohio.

At that point I started out for home. I stopped at this little place called the “The Tea Cup” somewhere on the edge of the Ohio and West Virginia border. I ordered the chicken fried steak, with home fries, biscuit, and OJ. At the table in front of me was a group of four older people (husband and wife and two other women). On the way back from the restroom I stopped to talk to them since everyone knows I’m the shy, quite, introverted one. Anyway as we talked I found out they were from Columbus and were heading to some inter-national quilting gathering and they had family in the DC area.

After I finished breakfast on my way to pay and then leave I stopped at the groups table to ask if I could get a picture to put on my website (blog). The only man in the group (in his later seventies) asked if I was going to write in my blog that I had sex with all of them. I told them no that was no going to happen and them they said I could take their picture. After paying and leaving I wondered why he seemed so eager about the sex thing. It gave me a good laugh for most of the rest of the trip and still does now and then.

Once I left the restaurant things were moving along until I hit West Virginia. Once I got there the road went from two lanes both way  and 65 mph down to one lane each way in really curvy up and down hill roads. This part of the trip only got longer when two, not just one, but two tracker trailers with double wides on them tried to go up and down the hills for over five or ten miles. I was so glad when they finally got on the interstate road I was on. After that the trip went along as planned and just seem to drag on until I got home.

The next post will be about the different conference sessions and the main points I got out of each. I will even link to all the notes I took.