This past weekend, Bill and I went for a quick visit to Chicago. The primary reason for the visit, apart from visting with my Dad, was to take Grandma and Dad to the Cubs-White Sox game. It is THE series of the summer.

This game has been a tradition for the last two years. We picked up Grandma nice and early, circled the ball park looking for a free parking spot and believe it or not, have found a free parking spot all three years. We had plenty of time to pick up our score cards and find our seats, giving us time to take advantage of the 25% discount on food and non-alcoholic bevarage if you buy 1 hour prior to game time. We chatted and got comfortable and anxiously waited for the first pitch

The game was awesome! AWESOME! The Cubs came from behind with an unbelievable 4th inning. Being there with all those people seeing the Cubs kick ass was unbelievably fun. If I only saw the Cubs win one game this season, I wanted that win to be when I was at Wrigley. The stadium is old, full of charm, and like no other ball park. There is a tradition of singing Go Cubs Go after a Cub win and we got to sing. No one leaves the stadium until the song has been sung.

Of course we had to listen to some White Sox fans rub in the fact that the Cubs haven’t won a World Series in 100 years. But despite the losing streak, Cubs fans are loyal. And maybe that’s really what bugs the White Sox fans.

Bill and I did some shopping after the game and then we fought traffic to go to our favorite pizza place, Connie’s. We rehashed the game, talked about family, caught up on life, stuffed ourselves silly. We took Grandma home and visited for a little bit and then headed home ourselves. It was a long and wonderful day. Bill and I were exhausted and slept well that night, with dreams of back-to-back home runs and a train of pin-striped players moving from first to third and scoring.

The rest of the weekend was a little less exciting, but wonderful nonetheless. We had two more days of quality time with my dad. We ate delicious hamburgers, went to the Buffalo for ice cream creations, watched the Cubs on tv, read, did some needlepoint, ate more pizza, and saw some of the flooding currently devastating parts of the midwest. Thankfully the areas around my dad, aren’t too bad, but flooding is flooding. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families currently struggling with the situation.

Our flight home was uneventful. We did get delayed on the plane however. We landed 10 minutes before a big thunderstorm and because there was lightning in the area, they weren’t letting the employees outside to wave the planes in. So I snuggled into my seat with the new Coldplay album and my Nora Roberts book and read. We were held up an hour and fifteen minutes but at least we were “home”. Of course the airport was a zoo because other planes were held up and everybody deplaned at the same time. Yikes!

And that was our trip to Chicago!