Trip Part 4: Chicago, IL

Chicago with two boys and all by myself. I don't know if I mentioned before or if I just assumed that everyone knew but we were tagging along with hubby during a business trip. We thought it would be a wonderful idea that the kids and I tour around the state of Illionois as hubby was at the boot camp for Farm Service Center Leaders in his company. Hubby's company paid for the mileage to the point of destination for the meeting and paid hotels for the trip over, during and back from the conference. They also paid for his meals, so it was a cheaper way for us to do all we did with hotel room and most of our mileage paid. So during the week I was all by myself touring all over the state of Illionois. I had never handled the boys in this type of situation... vacation, touring and single parenting it. I have been to several times some the largest cities this country has to offer. I navigated them with ease and big cities have never intimidated me. However this was done when I was single and I had nothing but myself to care about or for. So I was determined my boys have a large city experience especially with all the fun things to do. However, I was very nervous and a little stressed. I would be driving the Yukon, a very large car, into a city that I had read about the traffic and my dad who had previously been there for a Chicago Bulls Game back in the Jordan years said: "you have to keep one foot ready for the break one ready for the gas, one hand on the steering wheel and one hand ready for the horn." Then I talked to my sister-in-law a Chicago area native and the surprise and hesistation in her voice to help actually made me a little more nervous. She wasn't too sure if helping me find my way in that city was considered murder or not and she sounded a little nervous for me! ; )
So I pushed on, with my dad's stubborness to never let anything intimidate, which makes even that more determined to do it. I thought about every instance that could happen and tried to make sure I was prepared with every street smart I had learned prior. I devised and research every safe plan I had. My goal was to drive in at a not so busy time of day and park the car. Once I have parked the car I would use cabs to get around because they know that city far better and navigate with ease. As for not losing my 5 year old that has a tendency to stop and look at things every 5 minutes...well I had to have my "A game" on and always have one eye on him and one eye on Carson. I wore city appropriate clothes too. I had some cute Bermuda shorts that had two front button pockets which I put my cell phone and my debit card in one and my keys in another and tried to be discrete when I would take the stuff out to use. I had several telephone numbers for my sister-in-law's parents if I needed anything, so I had people ready to come to my aid if I needed anything. I know, I know, I sound like a crazy lady but those boys mean the world to hubby and I and I also know from experience all it takes is once being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the cities increase those wrong place chances especially knowing I had "in over-her-head tourist" stamped on my back end!
Well it turned out wonderfully, we had a fun time, the Gap Cowboy loved everything and we had some fun memories of Chicago! We got to do all on our list, including shopping down the Magnificent Mile!
So here are some of our fun Chicago memories...

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