From April 18th:
So the other day I went on a road trip to Chicago with my
friend Erik Voldness. We’ve been friends since we were young and have grown up
playing baseball together and we both have a love for the game. We had the idea to go on a road trip out of
sheer boredom, neither of us in school and doing absolutely nothing all
day. We threw out ideas one day from
Kansas City to an all out east coast road trip but eventually decided on
Chicago, Milwaukee and South Bend. The
schedule worked out so we could see 4 games in 3 days. A White Sox game on
Thursday, a Cubs game on Friday, drive to South Bend to see Twins top prospect
and #18 overall according to baseball reference Miguel Sano on Friday night,
then on Saturday go to Milwaukee for a Brewers game.
We decide to leave on Wednesday and arrive a night early to
figure out what we are doing the next day.
We get to the hotel where they only offer wi-fi in the lobby, what more
would you expect from a hotel that costs $34 a night. After getting into our room I hop onto my bed
and it’s a piece. Its like a pull out
couch for a mattress. It turns out
there’s two completely different beds in the room; different sizes, different
mattresses, and different heights. After
that debacle, we figure out what train to take to get to U.S. Cellular field
for the game, and figure out where to go in Chicago when the game is
finished. The next morning, I woke and
showered first and while Erik showered, I went down to see what they had for
breakfast. I arrive at the lobby and
what do you know, stacks on stacks on Ho-Hos.
Never saw that coming in a million years. I grab 8 packs and head back to the
room.
We head out for the day at park at the train station and
leave from Cumberland on the blue line. We
take the train about 20 minutes towards the city and realize we left the
tickets for the game in the car. We hop off and take the train back, grab the
tickets then back on the train into the city.
It’s about an hour train ride total to get to the field. The train dropped us off close to the field
making it a short walk. We got to the
game an hour early and walk around the stadium soaking it in. Its about 45 degrees at the ballpark, so we
stay in the sun and avoid the wind the best we can. The White Sox were playing the Orioles so there
weren’t more than 10,000 fans at the game.
White Sox lose 5-3 and we then head back into the city.
We get off on the Magnificent Mile, which is on Michigan
Avenue. It is basically full of fancy stores,
which of course Voldness and I were dying to shop at. We walk south across the Chicago River
walking towards Millennium Park. After
we’re in the park we find “The Bean” take a few pictures, move on to Buckingham
fountain. On a cold cloudy day the
fountain wasn’t much to look at, but on a hot summer day, I’m sure it would be
lovely. Then we walked over to the
Willis tower, formerly the Sears tower.
After walking inside we learn that there is 0 visibility from the top,
which we assumed based on the fact you couldn’t even see the top of the
building. By this time its about 6
o’clock and we are trying to figure out what else there is we should see. We decide to walk to the Chicago Theater. Not
sure what exactly it was but it looked cool and looked recognizable from
something I had seen before. After
walking around wet from the rain, cold, and windy we decide to go back to the
car. Take the train an hour back to the
car, drive to our next hotel, where the woman at the front desk cant even speak
English. But hey, a rooms a room. Think about going out to where Ryan who goes
to DePaul and works at the T-Mobile store we stopped at suggested us going. Realizing that its 40 degrees out and it’d
take an hour to get anywhere, there’s no chance were going anywhere. Day 1 of road trip, in the books.
