June 27
We spent the day just poking around getting ready to fly to Chicago. We took a pretty long walk through Portsmouth's downtown area, which is trying to revitalize. There are a number of antique shops and restaurants stretched over several blocks of High Street. We had lunch between rain showers at a place we visited last year, Roger Brown's Sports Bar. Roger Brown was apparently an NFL player at sometime, although I didn't study the memorabilia in the place long enough to know who he played for nor what his significance to Portsmouth is.
Ocean Marine is not only a marina, but has a full service boat yard also. I walked over to the boat yard office to see if by chance they might have a stainless welder who could fix the davits, and also fix the stanchion that got bent during Tropical Storm Alberto. I took a couple of pictures with me to show what I needed. I spoke to Jon Scott and explained that the boat would be here almost two weeks, but that we would be gone for most of that time. He told me he would get a guy over to look at it tomorrow and call me to tell me if they could do it, and if so, how much it would cost.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
June 28
Today is travel day. We were picked up at 08:30 by Bob from Portside Taxi. We had arranged the taxi yesterday, and Bob was waiting in the parking lot when we got up there. We had a twenty minute ride to the airport, and were there in plenty of time. We already had our boarding passes, so we got through security and to the gate. We are flying Southwest, so we took our place in the A line and waited for the flight. We are flying from Norfolk to Baltimore, changing planes and on to Midway in Chicago.
Both flights were on-time and uneventful. Once we were on the ground in Chicago, my brother Bob and his semi-new son-in-law Adam picked us up at the curb. They timed it perfect as we didn't wait more than three or four minutes.
We went back to Adam & Shannon's house, which is really half a house. Not to imply it is small. The building is a large old house that has been renovated and split into two residences. Adam & Shannon rent the first floor and the owners live on the second floor. The owners have finished out the basement into a very nice game room, including a pool table, foosball table, entertainment center, wet bar, bathroom, and more autographed sports memorabilia than Roger Brown's Sports Bar back in Portsmouth.
Shannon had prepared a wonderful dinner at home for our first night. After dinner, we learned of our sleeping arrangements for the week. There are a bunch of family members coming, and there will be people in every room and on every couch. Turns out that we will have private accommodations. Adam & Shannon's friend Sabrina has a studio sized condo, which is on the market, that she will let us stay in. So, brother Bob drove us over there, about five miles from Adam & Shannon's, later in the evening. Since the condo is for sale, it has only minimal furnishings to make it look good, but it is perfect for our needs.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
June 29
Bob picked us up in the morning and took us back to Adam & Shannon's. There are some errands to be run today, including Barb having to buy a dress for the wedding. Since we live in t-shirts and shorts all the time, dressing up even a little becomes a big deal. The wedding is not formal by any means, but nicer than t-shirts. Mid-morning, one car headed into downtown Chicago for errands including Barb's shopping. A second car was going to take Bob, Kitty, and Veronica on a thrift-store journey. While I don't like shopping, especially in thrift-stores, Bob and I figured we could find a neighborhood bar to wait in, while the ladies shopped.
We found the large Salvation Army store that we were looking for, parked there while the ladies shopped, and Bob and I went down the street and found a beer. About an hour later, we went back to fetch the shoppers, and then went to lunch. We found a nice English pub that served food and had burgers and beer. It didn't occur to us until then that we were the meat eating car, and Barb had gone off with the vegetarian car. Later in the afternoon when we were all together again, that became a good joke.
This evening, we went to Cafe Iberico, a tapas restaurant. A tapas restaurant is Spanish food. Tapas are small portions of an entree, and typically everybody would order something and then pass things around and sample lots of different things. We were joined by two of Shannon's cousins, Amber and Margaret, who had arrived form NY today.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
June 30
Today is a busy one. We are first going to lunch at Maggiano's, a very nice Italian restaurant. Adam's & Shannon's friends Ruben and Sabrina are joining us for the day's activities, and we met them here. Lunch was served family style for the twelve of us, and it was very good.
From the restaurant, we went a short distance to Arlington Park, a horse racing track. Adam had scored free admission tickets to the general admission area. It was a beautiful day so being outside was very pleasant. None of us are avid horse racing fans or bettors, so we needed a little help from the staff to figure out some of the betting options. I knew how to place basic bets, but had never done any of the perfecta, trifecta, superfecta, etc. types of bets, but the people at the betting windows were more than happy to be patient and explain them to us. In the second race, Bob bet a trifecta that won, and he got about $150 for his $3 bet. In the fourth race, I won a trifecta, but since all three horses involved had been favorites, it only paid me $18. It still meant I left with $3 more than I came with in betting money.
We drove back to the house late in the afternoon, regrouped, and then most of us took a train into the city to go to the Second City comedy show. Second City is the club where many famous comedians like John Belushi and Bill Murray got their starts. It is not a stand-up comic place like The Improv, but rather they do a series of skits with an ensemble cast of six or seven people. We went to the early show (20:00), which meant we had to be there about 19:00 to get good seats and a couple drinks and light snacks before the show. The show was very good, and even the crowd was entertaining, as we had a passed out drunk girl next to us who missed the entire show, while her date enjoyed it as if nothing was wrong with her.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 1
Today is the day of the big event. The third and final wedding of Adam & Shannon. I know I explained the complex wedding plans back in April when we went to St. Maarten, but I'll repeat them in case you forgot or didn't read that entry.
Last fall, Adam & Shannon announced their engagement with plans to get married in the summer of 2006 in Chicago. At least that's what Mom & Dad thought. They invited Mom and Dad to spend a week with them at their timeshare in St. Maarten in April, and secretly planned to have a beach wedding there. We were privy to the secret wedding plans, because we needed incentive to spend the money to fly down there and be part of the event. Of course, Mom & Dad thought the wedding was in July in Chicago, so plans were being made for that. That's what is happening now so their local friends can attend. But, plans are made to be disrupted, and these were no different. Shannon discovered she was pregnant a few months after all this planning started. Rather than change anything about the St. Maarten trip, Adam & Shannon went to Colorado where a friend married them. We still did the St. Maarten event, and the Chicago event is happening now. We joked that they have to stay together forever, because three divorces would be too complicated.
The event is taking place at an art gallery that does things like this also. We started about 17:30, with a short ceremony presided over by the bride's father. Bob did a reading, followed by a reading from me, one from the bride's sister Rachel, and one from Glamaris the bride's sorta-sister (she was an exchange student who lived with them back in 1989 and has stayed close to the family ever since). The bride and groom then said their vows, followed by one last reading from Shannon's friend Rebecca Rose, who came from New Mexico.
Once the "formal" part was done, we enjoyed food and drink and music for a couple of hours. We did the cake thing without any mashing in the face tricks. It was nice meeting some of their friends from Chicago. One of the deserts besides the wedding cake, was fortune cookies. As is the case with most things related to this gang of suspects, these were no ordinary fortune cookies. The cookies were store-bought, but the original crappy fortunes had been removed with tweezers and new custom made fortunes had been inserted. There was no attempt to get specific fortunes to specific people, but several came out very funny, including mine. It was, "You will soon make an unfortunate decision involving a wig". Based on this information, I have cancelled my hairpiece order.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 2
Today we are having a brunch at the house for the family and a few close friends who came from out of town for the wedding. We are using the basement game room for this. There were about twenty people there and we enjoyed more food. We ate and visited from 11:00 to about 14:00.
Later in the afternoon, we decided to take a walk to work off some of the calories we have been consuming non-stop for the last few days. I thought we were talking about a few block circle or something, but we kept going and going and going. Next thing you know, we were in Lincoln Square, a mile or more away. Lincoln Square is a few blocks of shops and restaurants. Since we were walking to work off some calories, what would we naturally do when we got in this area? We'd stop and have dinner! We decided on an Italian restaurant that we had passed. Once seated we had a typical hilarious time, spoofing the waitress with an improvised routine involving Kitty's sister being mute and from Latvia. It was one of those things that I can't really describe, and even if I tried, it wouldn't come across as funny as it was. It was a had-to-be-there moment.
After dinner we walked back to the house, and shortly after that Bob took us back to our condo.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 3
Today will be a busy and long day for us. We left the house about 11:30 and took a train downtown. We are going to take a boat tour on the Chicago River. The tour is run by the Architectural Foundation and the focus of the tour is the architecture of the downtown buildings. The day was threatening to rain, but we lucked out and enjoyed a nice overcast so we didn't bake while riding on the upper deck of the tour boat. After the tour, I chatted with the captain of the boat for a minute asking him about if and when the bridges through downtown ever open anymore. Turns out they open twice a year, once in spring and once in summer, so that sailboats which are used on Lake Michigan during the summer, but stored up-river for the winter can come and go.
From the river tour, we are going to the Taste of Chicago, an annual event where dozens of restaurants set up booths to show off their wares. But to get there, we have to walk past the Billy Goat Tavern. The Billy Goat Tavern is the place made famous by John Belushi on Saturday Night Live with the "Cheezborger, Cheezborger, Cheezborger, No Pepsi - Coke" routine. The tavern is actually located under the main street level at the river level, so it is like nighttime all the time. The guy at the counter was just like the routine from twenty years ago. Everybody but Shannon got a double cheezborger and a Coke.
From the Billy Goat, we walked on to the Taste of Chicago. Yes, on to more food. The Taste consisted of several blocks closed off with booths set up down the middle of the streets. There was every type of food you could ever want. You had to buy tickets which you then exchanged for food or drink. I'm sure this concept is a scam to make more money because of unused tickets. You either just buy too many, or the number you have doesn't work out with the number required, so you end up wasting a few. We spent a couple of hours wandering around, tried some foods, had some beers, and eventually made our way over to the lake shore where we will watch fireworks after dark.
The final event for the day is fireworks. Although it is Monday the 3rd, this is the big night for the official Chicago fireworks. We got an excellent place along the shore, right by the Chicago Yacht Club. The yacht club has a small dock that will accommodate a dozen or so boats, but there are hundreds of mooring balls in the harbor protected by a long breakwater from Lake Michigan. The fireworks will be shot from two barges which are tied to the breakwater, not more than a quarter mile from us. At 21:30, the show began. That is if you disregard the people show that we observed for a couple hours before the fireworks show. The fireworks were choreographed with music from the symphony, playing a couple blocks away. We could hear the music a little where we were, but the fireworks drowned most of it out. The show went on for twenty or thirty minutes, and was very good. I don't know why, but I really like a good fireworks show.
The journey home after the show was a whole story in itself. We started walking, along with a million or so other people, in various directions. We chose to walk north along Lakeshore Drive. No, make that ON Lakeshore Drive. From what we understand, the road, an eight lane divided highway, is not officially closed for the event. But, the people from the Taste of Chicago just kind of take over the highway when the fireworks start, and then it's closed until all the people are cleared. So, we walked north for quite a ways and down the exit ramp to the Navy Pier. From there we turned west and walked into downtown to where we finally caught a red-line train north. The rest of our gang had to transfer to the brown line, but we stayed on the red line, which took us within three blocks of the condo, so Bob didn't have to drive us home.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 4
The event of the day today is a baseball game. We left the house a little after noon and took a train to U.S. Cellular Field, home of the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox. Ok, enough of that, since we are Astro's fans. The game was good though, since the White Sox beat Baltimore with a final score of thirteen to nothing. The weather was clear and cool, and we were on the shady side of the field, so it was great. Some thought it was too cool, but I was comfortable.
After the game, we took the train back towards home, but stopped a station short of our normal stop to go to dinner at a Thai restaurant. We walked a block or so from the train to the restaurant and ate again. (I wouldn't have had that second hot dog if I knew we were stopping for dinner on the way home.) From dinner, we walked the rest of the way home. We are staying at Adam & Shannon's tonight since we have to leave for the airport pretty early tomorrow.
Back at the house, we decided to watch a movie on pay-per-view. The movie, The Weatherman, was mediocre. But the war going on outside was downright amazing. There was a constant barrage of fireworks going off all over the neighborhood. We're not talking Lady Finger firecrackers here. We're talking sounds the size of a professional show. And it went on for three to four hours. I was shocked that this level of personal use was allowed without any intervention by the police or fire department. Fortunately, by the time the movie was over and we went to bed, the war calmed down.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 5
We are flying back to the boat today. Bob took us to the airport and we headed to the gate. We already had our boarding passes, so we went right to security. We expected to be questioned at security, because we were carrying the Milwaukee right angle drill that we had repaired in St. Augustine and shipped here. I figured they would question it, but then let us through. Well, the bitch who did the bag check said it could not go in the carry on because it was too big, and because the battery was attached. She was typically rude for a TSA employee, and suggested I might just want to leave my $400 tool behind. Since I declined that option, the other choice was for her to mash it back in the bag nothing like it was originally packed, and escort me out of the secure area so I could check the bag. She would not even allow me to touch the bag to remove a magazine and hand it to Barb before I got escorted out. Too bad that the majority of TSA employees who are supposedly protecting our air travel are dunces who couldn't get a minimum wage job at McDonald's. Once we got home, I got on the TSA website and found that indeed my power tool should not have been allowed in a carry-on. But, there was no mention of size, nor battery attachment. Any power tool is not allowed. So the bitch that inspected my bag had no idea what she was talking about.
Other than that, the travel was fine. And our checked bag got to Norfolk with the drill still in it. Barb's sister-in-law picked us up at the airport and we went to their house for dinner. Barb's parents drove from Ohio to visit for the week, so we saw them as well as her brother and family. After dinner, her brother Jim drove us back to the boat for the night. Everything was fine, and the cat was glad to see us.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 6
We had a lazy morning, and then at noon borrowed the marina courtesy car to go to pick up a bunch of spare engine parts we ordered last week. We learned from our six months in the Bahamas, what seemed to break and cause people problems. Since we plan to be out of the country for a year and a half starting next fall, we took this opportunity while near a Westerbeke distributor to pick some things up. For the boaters in the readership, the things we chose to get spares of were a heat exchanger, a water pump, and a fuel injector. We only got one injector, because all four shouldn't fail at once. I was going to get a starter, but a starter is the kind of thing that can be rebuilt pretty much anywhere. I also got an oil pressure gauge and sending unit. We currently have a light and buzzer to warn of low oil pressure, but I would like to know the real pressure.
After the parts house, we hit a grocery store. We got everything we should need for a week or two except fresh produce. We'll go back and get that Sunday or Monday before we leave.
I walked over to the boat yard to check with Jon Scott and see why I had never heard from him regarding fixing our two stainless projects. He remembered me and said he had not had time for a guy to come estimate the job. I told him we were leaving Monday, and he said "If I knew you were only here for two weeks, I would have told you we couldn't do the job". Well, that's bull. We specifically discussed our schedule, and he specifically said he would have somebody look at the boat the day we left. So, while I can highly recommend Ocean Marine as a marina, I have a very low opinion of their repair yard.
On the way back to the boat from the yard, I noticed a boat named Indigo Lady tied up in the corner of the marina. I have been following a boat named Irish Mist since I met Jim in Newburgh, NY last May before we ever left TX. Irish Mist is doing the Great Circle, which is the East Coast, up the Hudson, through the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes, through Chicago, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida and back to the East Coast. Of course, you start wherever you live and make the circle from there. Irish Mist met up with Indigo Lady in St. Louis and traveled off and on with her until he got home in NC. Indigo Lady is from Ontario and has moved on north since then. So, when I saw the boat, I assumed it was the same one, and decided we needed to meet. However, it was raining and we were headed off to Barb's brother's house, so I checked in the office and they said Indigo Lady was expected to stay another day or two, so we'll catch her tomorrow.
Barb's brother Jim picked us up about 15:00 and took us to his house. We visited and then enjoyed a nice barbequed dinner. We visited until about 21:00 and then Jim took us back to the boat.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.
July 7
Today we have minimal plans. Our two things to accomplish are updating the log, and meeting Indigo Lady. We slept in, and had just been up a little while when a woman stopped by the boat to say hi. Turned out it was Mary Ellen from Indigo Lady. She had no idea we wanted to meet her, but she saw our hailing port was Kemah, and she has a friend who lives there, so she wanted to meet us. She was in the office checking out when she saw Barb in the cockpit and stopped to say hello. Well, I popped above when I heard Barb talking to her, and told her we "knew" her from Irish Mist's website. We invited Mary Ellen aboard and ended up talking for several hours, and then going out to lunch with her. She extended her stay at the marina because of us. It was neat to meet another cruiser we have read about.
Later in the evening, Barb's brother Jim and wife Lou Anne, and parents, Jim & Mary, came to Portsmouth and joined us for dinner at a nice seafood restaurant within walking distance of the marina. We bid them all goodbye after dinner, as we probably won't see them again if we leave on schedule.
Back at the boat, I updated the log. So, both things we had planned today are accomplished.
GPS N 36-49.949 W 076-17.758 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 5350.