My weekend getaway

Melinda and I had a super fabulous weekend! We went to Chicago with Pat on Saturday then stopped in Dearborn at the Henry Ford Museum today on our way home. So much fun!

We went down to Pat's house on Friday night after work. The drive down wasn't much fun since its was raining and dark. Yuck! But we made it there in one piece, which was nice. We hung out with Pat for a bit before going to bed.

We got up at 5:00 am on Saturday to head for Chicago. We got on the road about 5:30ish. The plan was originally that we would switch drivers, but Pat ended up driving the whole way since it was his car. Though Melinda and I switched spots and each got to nap some. I think I slept through about 1.5 hours of the 4 hour trip. We didn't encounter much traffic, which seemed a bit unusual for a Saturday.

Our first stop was the Field Museum for the "Real Pirates" exhibtion, which was ending. The exhibit is about the pirate ship "Whydah" which Melinda and I had first learned about at the Pirate Museum in Salem, MA back in 2007. The exhibit was really neat, but they didn't allow photography. Boo! Though I did purchase a book about the exhibit so hopefully I can scan some photos from that to use for scrapbooking. We looked around a few of the other exhibits, but not much as changed there since our last visit so we left.

Next stop was Navy Pier for lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. This is were we ALWAYS have lunch when we go to Chicago. The food was AWESOME! So good! I had a cheeseburger. Pat had a variety of different shrimp. Melinda had shrimp lingini. Then we all split a chocolate chip cookie sundae! It was soooo delicious! It got devoured. After lunch we looked around Navy Pier a bit, took photos, did some shopping, etc.

After Navy Pier we headed to Water Tower Place to go to American Girl Place. It had recently moved from its previous building, but it was still a mad house! WOW! That is one crazy store. I am so sad that they are going to be retiring my favorite doll, Kirsten at the end of the year. I had to get a few things I was missing. Melinda and Pat each got me an outfit as my Christmas present. LOL Melinda and I only really looked around the historical doll section. We didn't really get to explore much of the rest of the store. It seriously is super crazy with kits running EVERYWHERE!

The next objective for our trip was to find one of the locations where they filmed "The Dark Knight." We did find it, but it was difficult for Melinda to get photos of. We'll have to go back another time to try to get better photos.

By this time we were all pretty tired and wanted to go to the hotel. We weren't going to stay at the hotel we normally stay at in downtown Chicago since we had decided to use some reward points with a different hotel chain. The hotel we had reservations at was by Midway airport and had gotten good reviews on TripAdvisor.com. When we got closer to Midway we got stuck in some traffic due to construction on S. Cicero Ave, but we eventually got to the hotel. The hotel was nice. The room was clean. Not all that spacious, but it wasn't bad. The staff was really friendly and we had no issues redeeming our points. Pretty much after we unpacked the car we all took a nap.

When we woke up we were hungry. We had seen a Giordano's Pizza two blocks from the hotel and decided to order a cheese stuffed pizza. WOW! Was it good! SOOOOOO full of cheese. I swear the cheese was about 2 inches thick. Seriously good. Though I'm not sure it was better then Gino's where we normally go, but it was really, really good. Better than Uno's. I LOVE Chicago style pizza. Though sadly I didn't get a photo of it.

After that we just hung out in the room watching "Milk" on HBO. It was an interesting movie, though I really wasn't paying attention.

We then went to bed so we could get up early to leave for home. Our original plans were to go to the Halloween Nights at Greenfield Village, but the event was sold out for Sunday night. Bummer. So we decided to go to the Henry Ford Museum to see the Lego Castle exhibit. In all the years going to Greenfield Village, Melinda and I have never been to the Henry Ford Museum. It gave us another chance to use our membership. The Henry Ford Museum is really neat, though the set up is kind of confusing and at times seems haphazard. Lots of exhibits about different kinds of history other than automotive. One of the neatest parts was seeing the chair that Abraham Lincoln was shot in at Ford's Theater. Will have to post some photos of the museum later.

After that we went back up to Pat's house to get Melinda's car and head home. We were looking forward to seeing our babies. It was a short weekend, but lots of fun. We had fun spending time with Pat.

I'll post photos later! Right now I need to go to bed so I can go to work tomorrow.

Later!
Melissa