Chicago!

I had a really smooth flight to Chicago. The security lines at the airport were really short. The TSA folks were exceptionally nice, and the plane was full but I had no trouble with overhead storage space. When we were just outside Chicago, we flew by some weather (we had to fasten the seatbelts) and although the ride did not get particularly bumpy, on the right side of the plane we were treated to the most spectacular cloud formations I've ever seen. One in particular was this ridiculously huge stack of fluffy, cloudy whiteness (massive!) that turned grey and fuzzy near the top and kind of blended in with a thin layer of dark grey clouds above us. I later learned that there was a tornado just south of Chicago and I wonder if that cloud formation had any part of that.

Traffic into Chicago was rough (it was raining off and on rather hard) but after we got checked in, cleaned up and changed, I met Sandy down at the hotel bar for a quick drink (Patty was there too, after a hard 2 hours of shopping) and we went to meet some folks at The Gage for dinner. The food was really good and the restaurant was busy and hopping. We shared a delicious cheese plate (some cheeses from Europe, some local). Barb had the celery root soup with salmon rolls which was surprisingly good. I had elk with mashed potatoes and the meat was amazing, flavourful, juicy but not fat at all. The mashed potatoes were buttery, smooth and delicious. Yummy! For dessert we tried the peanut butter mousse s'mores and the french toast. I didn't much care for the french toast (the maple jelly was good but the crispy rice didn't have much taste) but I loved the peanut butter s'mores, although really I think they were more like Reese's with marshmallow foam. We had two delicious bottles of wine, one a Chardonnay from Mendoza, Argentina and one a Pinot Grigio. We had a great time talking about things both important and trivial, and crushing on the bus boy (he's 21, from El Salvador and in Chicago because he heard it was a fun city).

After dinner, Sandy and I went to Blue Chicago to listen to a really fun blues band. They started with a male singer but were later joined by a woman with a voice that'll blow you out of the room. They sang a few covers, made sure there was plenty of audience participation, and just rocked the house.

The streets were packed as we made our way back to the hotel. What a great intro to a great city!