Trip to Chicago
- kelsiesabers
- Feb 16, 2015
- 4 min read
Conor and I planned a trip to Chicago primarily for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game, but decided to turn it into a whole weekend trip and also celebrate Valentine's Day! We had lots of fun, but also had a very interesting and frusterating end to our trip...
Our trip began Friday morning when we left Madison a little before noon to head to Chicago, stopping at the Belvidere Oasis for a little driving break, some coffee and a bite to eat. We decided to stop at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumberg to see if we could find any good deals on some Blackhawks gear. We found some pretty amazing deals and came out with a few new items! We stopped at Lush for the first time, which was amazing! (Conor even liked the store) I would've loved to stay and shop at Nordstrom for a while, but I knew Conor wouldn't be too thrilled and we both wanted to get to the hotel and get settled before the game.
When we arrived at the hotel, it was amazing! After changing bookings a few times (long story), we booked the Holiday Inn on West Mart Plaza. The hotel is above the Chicago Sun Times, so when we got in the building the elevator options were 1 and 15. We were very confused, but just followed everyone else walking the same way as us with luggage. The hotel lobby was on the 15th floor, and opened up to a large room where you could see all of the other floors, along with the Cityscape Bar that had large glass windows overlooking the city. It was beautiful! We checked in and got our room key. The room was super cute and a lot larger than I expected for downtown Chicago! We lounged around the room for a bit before getting ready for the Blackhawks game that night!!
We cabbed it to the game, which turned out to be AMAZING!! Blackhawks were down by one goal in the 3rd period and came back to win the game 3-1! There's never a bad seat at the United Center. We've purchased Standing Room Only seats the past 2 times and they were perfect... and a great deal too!
Saturday's plan was to go to Millenium Park and see Cloud Gate "The Bean" and go ice skating. The weather was sunny, but extremely windy and cold. We were thinking of going to the Shedd Aquarium, but decided to walk around near the hotel and check out the sites. We ended up at the Merchandise Mart, which is the huge building right next to our hotel with a food court and tons of little home shops in it. We walked around for quite a while and saw some pretty neat stuff! We stopped at a little cafe for food and then grabbed some coffee before walking around some more and heading back to the hotel.
We had dinner reservations at the Kinzie ChopHouse just down the street from the hotel to celebrate Valentine's Day. The menu was a la carte. Conor got the Roasted Red Pepper Bisque soup to start and the Austrailian Lobster tail for his meal. I got the 12oz. NY Strip with a cabernet demi-glace and a side of asparagus with hollandaise sauce. The food was outstanding! We received a free champagne toast and chocolates at the end of the meal as well!
Our weekend was amazing, until we hit the road on Sunday morning...
It was snowing pretty heavily near the city and as we were getting onthe expressway, we hit heavy traffic and were barely pushing 5 mph. Conor's car started acting very funny, lights started flashing and his engine began revving. Conor immediately thought it was his alternator, since he had experienced the alternator failing in a previous vehicle he had. We tried our best to get the the outer lanes of the expressway, but when we were in the 2nd lane from the outside edge, his car completely turned off! We called the non emergency police to see if we could get an officer over to us to block off the lane, but there was a 40 car pile up on the other side of the expressway that had all of the police and tow trucks occupied. The police station said they would send us a tow truck. We used Conor's emergency flashers as long as we could before the car completely shut off. The tow truck arrived shortly after, and we got to ride in the car while the tow truck towed us to the local Acura dealership 1/4 of a mile away. $215 cash later.. did I mention it was 1/4 of a mile?.. we were dropped off at a nearby gas station with a Subway and a Dunkin Donuts in it. This is where we sat for the next 3+ hours while waiting for Conor's parents to come pick us up. What would've been an arrival back in Madison at 2:30pm ended up being around 8:30pm. It was a very stressful day, and we had to leave Conor's car in Chicago, but we are extremely lucky that Conor's parents were able help us!
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