First snow & Chi-town

We woke to our first snow of the winter yesterday, about 6 inches of the stuff in fact.

We had planned to take the train in to the city with a group of friends so did we let a little snow stop us?  No way, no how!  Should we have???  uh, maybe?

Ours friends, Ron & Jodee (from my Gilligan's Island post this summer) picked us up at 6:15 am so we could meet two other couples and head to the train station which is an hour and 15 minutes drive from our house.  Our goal was to catch the 8:25 train.  Most of the roads, even though they were state highways weren’t plowed yet so the 8:25 train we did not make but only by 15 minutes.  So to Mickey D’s we went to have a cup of coffee and wait for the next one.

As far as I’m concerned, the train is the only way to go in to the city.  It’s cheap on the weekend, no parking hassles, no making wrong turns, it just plain rocks!

First stop since we arrived later than planned was lunch at Millers Pub.  It’s always been one of our favorite places to go but this time I’m not so sure.  A reservation given away even though we were there minutes before the time we requested, bad sauerkraut and I mean really bad, no apology and they still charged them for their meals.  My pork chops were good and Dan’s chicken was outstanding but service also means alot so not sure how soon we’ll go back.

After lunch, we stopped in at the Palmer House Hotel to see their decorations and had to have our picture taken with a Nut.  Cracker that is.  Then some shopped and some wandered, we & R&J were the wanderers.

The trees were so pretty with the way the snow was hanging on the branches.  Chicago didn’t have as much snow as we did at home but it did snow most of the time we were there.

We watched them skate awhile at Millennium Park.  We considered renting skates but the line was long and we thought it could be a really looonnggg trip back to the train station with a broken bone so we passed on it.

We walked down the famous Michigan Avenue but only went in two stores.  The Harley Store expecting to look at bikes but all they had was Harley merchandise. A little disappointing. 

Then we went to Trader Joe’s.  No Christmas trip to Chicago is complete without a stop at Trader Joe’s to pick up a box of the Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s and a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck Wine.  Yeah, we’re big spenders like that!

Our last stop was the Christkindl Market, a German style open air Christmas market.  We walked down the first aisle at the market and it was so crowded that we decided one pass was more than enough. 

We took our obligatory picture by the Christmas tree in the Market and back to the train station we went.     What a fun day in the city with great friends!  You oughta try it sometime!