Chicago – Day 1

We packed up the car, set the GPS, and hit the road for Chicago. We skipped breakfast in Peoria, but stopped at Krispy Kreme in Bloomington. It turns out that was Reese’s first time there, and he loved it. The rest of the drive was uneventful, and we got in to the hotel without any further issues.

After unpacking the car, we walked over to the Elephant and Castle for lunch. Imagine my surprise when I found out that they had poutine on the menu. Of course I ordered some, and it was pretty good! While we were eating, the hotel texted me that our room was ready, so once we were finished with lunch, we headed back to get settled in.

We took a walk across the river and went over to the original location of the Billy Goat Tavern for some cheeseburgers and chips (no fries!). The place is a dive, the food’s ok, the beer is decent, but it’s full of history and was well worth the walk over and was a good way to cap off our first night in the city.

Amtrak Day 2

Woke up this morning and headed over to the dining car for some breakfast and coffee. We were running a little late, so I called ahead and got Joi to head down to Bloomington to pick me up. It was good to see Reese, and man he’s grown! We went up to the Peoria Airport so that I could pick up the rental car. After that we went back to the house and chilled before getting some dinner. I did some work on Reese’s computer, getting the OS updated, making sure everything else was in good shape, and general fine tuning. After that we went over his packing and got everything ready for the week in Chicago.

An Amtrak Adventure

This upcoming week is Reese’s spring break, so to control costs, I’m taking the train up to Bloomington and then renting a car to drive us to Chicago. I went in to work a half day with Heather, grabbed some lunch, then hopped on the TRE to head for the Fort Worth station. That’s where the fun started. There is some construction on the tracks between San Antonio and Fort Worth, so we got bussed to Longview. When we got there it was pouring rain, but we all wanted to be off the bus, so we collected our baggage and hopped on. It pulled out a few minutes later, though a little behind schedule. I snagged a quick dinner from the cafe and settled in with a book. We’ll be in Bloomington some time tomorrow, around lunchtime if we get back on schedule.