We were anxious to get started on our long weekend away, but you know there was stuff to do before we actually could leave. First thing was to make sure we had someone to do chores. Done. Then the second thing was to have Reno go to a kennel for a couple of days. Now this was a little bit more of a challenge. She does not go to the vet well, and that’s saying it about as nice as I can. I usually have to pick her up under her front legs and do my best to carry her into the office. I kind of do a goofy walk with her in between my legs. Believe me, it not only embarrassing for me, but also for her. But once we got inside and she was settled – we could check that off. The mail was stopped, and we touched base with William in case he was coming home for the weekend. Our vacation was scheduled at work, so now the only thing left to do was to put gas in the car and head to Chicago. And guess what? That’s exactly what we did on Friday morning. The weather was great and we had really good weather to drive in. On our way to the city, we made a detour to visit one of the company plants that Daryl knows the managers. Even though it was one of those spur of the moment decisions, we both decided that it was a good thing to do.
Bay Valley Research and Development facility in Pecatonica, Illinois
When we got into the city, there sure seemed to be quite a bit of traffic. The road was 10 lanes wide, with a train going down the top of the road, and two other city trains going on both sides of the road.
A lot of people going some place
But Daryl doesn’t mind driving in traffic and soon we were finding our way to our hotel.
Finding our way to our hotel
When we booked our hotel, there was a comment section on the screen. So I added that our anniversary was coming up and not really thinking that they would do anything. We were wrong and they ended up bringing up this to our room. Nice.
Happy Anniversary to us!
I’ve heard that if you are in Chicago, you just HAVE to eat one of their famous hot dogs. So that’s just what we did. Daryl has had them before, but this was my first time eating one. To me, they tasted like a hot dog, but then I’m really not an expert on this. 
We were in a tourist part of the city, so we were lucky to have a restaurant close by and our first meal in the city was at Portillo’s eating famous hot dogs.
Inside the restaurant
Then after a long day, we ended up back at the hotel getting ready for a big day tomorrow.