Been awhile since I posted, I know. Lots of stuff going on. Anyways, I thought I’d keep a blog for our pending trip to Chicago. We leave tomorrow. If you’re lucky, I’ll keep updating this every day (or at least somewhat regularly) to fill you in on all the exciting things that we’re doing.

Here are some of the things that we may do while we’re there

• Sears Tower
• Lincoln Park Zoo
• Museum of Science and Industry
• Chicago Children’s Museum
• Navy Pier
• Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
• The Lego Store
• Amazing Funhouse Maze

Obviously that’s a lot of things, and since we’re only going to be there for 4 days not including travel time, we may not be able to pack it in. As Carolyn keeps reminding me, this stuff is not going anywhere. That’s the main reason that we scrapped the trip to Nauvoo, even though that was something that we both wanted to see. Just not enough time to spend a day going somewhere 4 hours to and from somewhere, even if the trip would have allowed me to rack up some more counties :-). “It’s not going anywhere”

As I believe I have mentioned before (though I can’t find that post at the moment), the budget for this trip was $1000. I think we probably blew that though since hotels are expensive, especially when you are trying to get 2-bedroom suites. I did look into extended stay places and renting someones timeshare, but wasn’t really able to find anything. The one we ended up with cost $150 a night including 11% lodging tax. So there’s $750 right there. The good news is that most of the stuff we’re going to do will be free with our museum pass.

We are planning on using public transportation for most of our transportation needs. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I like roads and maps and things like this. If you know me, you know that this is quite true. Despite reason #2, this is definitely a big factor.
2. I’m a cheapskate frugal.
3. Scott will, I think, be quite excited to ride the trains / buses.
4. Traffic will be madness, especially considering we’ll be driving into the downtown area right around 9-10 a.m.
5. Parking at some of these places is crazy – $12 at the zoo and $12 at the museum of science and industry
6. We’re like 20-25 miles out of downtown at least, so that’s a lot of wear and tear on the van.
7. Many of the interstates are toll roads.
8. Did I mention I’m a cheapskate frugal? 🙂

I will try to post more later on in the week.