Chicago - day 2

Wednesday, July 28
51 miles

The painful ding-donging of the alarm clock busted through the wonderful silence of the James Hotel at the ungodly hour of 5:00am. Why? There are only a few things that will have me set an alarm for that time (or for anytime for that matter). Golf is one of them. Today was a day that I had been especially looking forward to. I was scheduled to meet my buddies, Diane and Pam to join their golf league and get my a$$ kicked.

I called the valet to get my car (they have to earn their $48/day somehow. . .) and it was waiting for me when I arrived in the lobby. I set Mandy to lead me to White Pines Country Club in Bensenville. The drive went pretty smoothly until road construction caused me to miss my exit. Mandy huffed and sighed, but finally lead me in the back way.

The course was gorgeous - green and lush. Diane and Pam greeted me in the parking lot and introduced me to their other friends along the way. We had a fun round and I finally believe Diane that playing in the Midwest is waaaay different than playing in Arizona. There are trees (what are those?) and the rough is truly rough. I had a pretty bad round, Diane and Pam each had a good round and I indeed did get my a$$ kicked by them (and the course). However, it was a lot of fun. Diane even came up with a new word which I cannot print here - ask me about it later. . .

tiny picture of very tiny golfers

We ate lunch at the club and then I steeled myself for the drive back into downtown Chicago. Mandy came through like a trooper and I was back in less than 30 minutes. Fantastic!

Janel and John were back at the room when I arrived and filled me in on their activities of the day: breakfast at Eggceptional Cafe and exploring the Museum of Contemporary Art. When I heard that I immediately thought that they MUST have taken some great pics for me to put in the blog. They insisted that they had forgotten the camera. Can you say "sabotage?" (or "blog-o-tage"?) They did, however, throw me a bone of 2 silly pics they took in the room.

I am glad I was not around for these pictures. . .

Tonight's dinner was scheduled to be an early repast at XOCO - a Rick Bayless joint. It is attached to his other 2 restaurants here that are extremely popular - Frontera and Topolobampo. Since XOCO does not take reservations we thought we would have a better chance of getting in. When we arrived in the area we were delighted to see that we could be seated outside at Frontera and jumped on the opportunity. We were not disappointed to say the least.

Janel and I started with specialty margheritas - mine had a spash of cucumber and was rimmed with cilantro salt; hers was tamarind rimmed with chipotle salt. WOW! They were so good that they tasted just like another.


We once again opted to order a variety of small plates and share all. We had their famous guacamole followed by the trio of ceviches. Then came a cazuela de pollo followed by the Wednesday special of conchinita pibil (Yucatecan style achiote-rubbed pork cooked in banana leaves).

trio of ceviches (Janel/John loved the halibut - far end) (mom loved the tuna - close end)

the hab enero salsa is INTENSE (but delicious)

We did NOT have room for dessert.

We walked a bit and then flagged a cab for a short ride to the Briar Street Theater where we had tickets to see Blue Man Group. At least one of us was a bit leary of our seating arrangements since we had seats in the "poncho" section. Sure enough when we got to our second row seats there were ponchos draped on the backs. We notice all the folks around us donning their gear and we did likewise. I am not going to give anything away about the show because you must experience it for yourself. Suffice it to say it was AWESOME! We all thoroughly loved it and highly recommend it to almost everyone.

gettin' in the blue mood

awaiting the action (had to sneak this photo - NO photos allowed inside)

We made a brief stop at the lobby bar of the James on the way to our room to unwind and discuss the evenings activities. Since someone had blog duties, we retired to our room for the night and finished this edition. Tomorrow is another day in Chicago and we are looking forward to what the day may bring.