10.09.13 The Chauvin’s visit Chicago!

Roy still can’t stop talking about how great the Field of Dreams was.  It was every bit as perfect as I hope the pictures showed.  I’d give Tuesday morning’s adventure an A+++++.  Tuesday afternoon’s drive to Chicago got a much lower rating!  The traffic was horrible and hasn’t improved in our travels today(Wednesday).  The streets are extremely confusing with rarely is there a line drawn to indicate the lanes you’re to drive in.  Sometimes we’d have two lanes and then they would go to one lane and back with no warning!  We arrived after dark unfortunately which only added to the nerve-wracking driving of big Dora and Boots in unchartered territory! The Wal-Mart I picked for us to stay at turned out to be in a potentially very unsafe section.  We parked there and went inside to shop and when we came out we’d seen enough to know we really shouldn’t stay there.  We went way down the road to Sam’s Club’s parking lot and ended up in front of Target in an overflow parking lot next to a bank.  We felt much safer here so we called it a night.

Wednesday got off to a great start with our first stop at the Chicago Bear’s Soldier Field.  It’s in a beautiful area with lush green grass and beautiful trees not too far from the beautiful blue Lake Michigan.  The outer shell of the stadium looks more like a place where congress should meet than a football stadium.  We got several good pictures from there.  I’d have loved to have been there on Sunday when the Saints beat the Bears!

On we went to the Chicago Cubs Wrigley Field which is in downtown Chicago.  They are doing construction in the stadium and are not allowing anyone inside except on weekends.  We found a semi drunk man (or actually he found us) who offered to give us an unofficial tour.  He showed us the best places to take pictures from outside and really knew the place well. 

We headed out of the city to a residential neighborhood where Eli’s Cheesecake Company is located.  The residential areas are very pretty and Eli’s just blended into the scenery there even though it’s a big place.  I’ve never heard of Eli’s before this but we’re sure glad we went.  We were treated to a very nice presentation of how the cheesecakes are made and what makes them different from other cheesecakes.   They make around 4,000 to 5,000 whole cheesecakes in many, many flavors each day.  We sampled their plain, chocolate chip and pumpkin cheesecakes and they were all delicious.  They use sour cream in theirs instead of the New York style cheesecakes that use heavy cream.  At the end the young lady doing the presentation pulled our number as winners of a full cheesecake.  One of the bakery ladies, Eleanor, decorated it with the toppings we chose and agreed to take a picture with Roy and I.  It was a very enjoyable experience and if you ever see an Eli’s cheesecake for sale BUY IT!  You won’t be sorry! 

We were so excited when we left there that we didn’t think anything could top it but we hadn’t been to Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria yet! We almost gave up on going there with the terrible traffic downtown and not being able to find a parking space.  Finally we found a Pay to Park box and parked a couple of blocks away.  Our friend, Elizabeth Halpin Smith recommended that we get a deep dish pizza while in Chicago.  We looked on line and saw that Lou Malnati’s got raves in the reviews so that’s where we went.  It not only lived up to our expectations, it topped them.  Delicious buttery crust with fresh tomatoes, Italian sausage, pepperoni and scrumptious cheese.  Of course we ordered way too much and now have enough for dinner tonight.  Can’t imagine a better left over pizza than Malnati’s deep dish pizza! Thanks Elizabeth for the suggestion!

We’re both looking forward to a quiet evening of rest and some pizza and cheesecake! I’ve included several pictures above but I took many more of our travels around Chicago through the various neighborhoods and downtown. I plan to post many more of these pictures tomorrow. Hope you guys will check them out

Ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear!