We left Abilene on Thursday straight from work...we drove as far as we could, and stayed at a Hampton Inn in Joplin, MO. After a very brief sleep, we were back on the road and headed for St. Louis!! We arrived in the early afternoon and stopped to visit briefly with my mom at her work. She was so excited to see us that she nearly fell off her office chair :) After a bit, we headed on to her house to relax and have some lunch.
That evening, we enjoyed some delicious homemade spidinis! I haven't had those in a very, very long time, and she made them especially for Chris. Yes, my mom loves my hubby!!! :) And he loves her too! We enjoyed a great evening with them, and then hit the sack for another early rise the next morning.
Because we were heading to Chicago for Chris to run his 12th marathon!! The Windy City! It was a five hour drive from St. Louis, with Illinois scenery of corn field after corn field. And then we arrived in downtown Chicago to this:
It took awhile to get to our hotel, and then we gladly had the car valet parked. No way were we going to drive around this city!!! Luckily, our hotel was right in the center of downtown, so we were able to walk everywhere. We stayed at the Congress Plaza Hotel, and it was old school swanky!
We were on the 8th floor and had an amazing view of the city and the waterfront. Just beautiful...
We took school bus shuttles to the convention center for the Marathon Expo, where Chris had to check in for the race. With 47,000 runners, you can imagine the crowds that swam at the Expo. So many people.
Chris got his bib number, his tshirt, and a packet of goodies...we bought a few marathon tshirts, and took in the sights.
And Chris' most favorite part of the entire trip was meeting Sara Hall! She is a professional runner, and is married to professional marathoner Ryan Hall. She was TINY. But she was so very sweet and we enjoyed chatting with her. So now Aspen has had her picture with Ryan and Chris has had his picture with Sara...all happy campers now!
We also watched an interview with two of the USA women's World Cup soccer team, including Abby Wombach. They, along with Hope Solo who was not in town yet, ran the marathon relay for charity. The girls were great, especially Abby. She is a stand up professional for sure. And according to Chris, she's a "beast"...
After the Expo, we waited about an hour for the shuttle to take us back to our hotel...and then we set out for a little sightseeing and some dinner...
Loved this big fountain...it was so neat to see it juxtaposed against the city scape in the background.
We spent a little time relaxing along the waterfront, watching the sailboats and talking...
The city was full of interesting artwork and sculptures...loved this one with the ivy skirt...
Living in Abilene, we don't see much of Autumn...it pretty much goes straight from 100 degree heat to freezing cold, and our puny mesquite trees don't change to pretty colors. So it was quite refreshing to see all of the Fall leaves everywhere. This yellow tree was stunning!
This one was my favorite of the entire trip...it actually glowed, it was breathtaking.
The Bean was my favorite site in Chicago! A huge shiny silver bean, reflecting everything around it. We took lots of neat shots, these are a few of the best...
This one was taking while standing directly underneath the bean. It morphed out into so many directions!! I am actually reflected in this photo a number of times...if you click on it to enlarge it, look for the girl in the turquoise shirt!! :)
After seeing some sights, we had a delicious dinner at Caffe Baci...yummy italian, and the best mac and cheese ever!! Chris was able to carb up on some pasta for his race the next morning. Yum!
So, that was pretty much our first day in Chicago...we had an early "lights out" since the alarm was set for 5:00 a.m.!!!!
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