(click here for today's pictures)
Last night as we were watching the last little bit of tv, Whitman left his sleeping bag spot and climbed in our bed. He wanted to lay between us for the last little bit of the show. That was fine since there was just about 10 minutes left. I cuddled up with him and soon we both had a little catnap.
Robby hoisted Whitman off our bed and onto his pallet on the floor. He slept there until about 6 this morning when he crawled back in between us. He was still just as cuddly so we snoozed on even after Robby had gotten up and was getting his shower.
It took us a bit longer to get around this morning, but we still had time for our breakfast. Breakfast was better today than yesterday-they had granola. Now, we also smuggled out some nutella, paper plates and silverware which mortified Reagan even though she helped bring the plates upstairs. We didn’t take anything excessive but only just a few-Robby had to explain that we could have used those at breakfast so we weren’t stealing.
It was just a short drive to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield. Robby and I were here with Grannymom and Granpda when I was pregnant with Reagan in 2005. The museum was still just as impressive. When you enter we took pictures with statues of Lincoln and his family.
They had two really neat movies in the museum. They were more like plays or even Disney type movies so they kept everyone’s attention. Now, the most interesting fact that I have learned over the past two days is that the Lincoln’s did not discipline their children. The little boys seemed to wreak havoc where ever they were. Now, also there is that interesting story about Robert Lincoln havin his mother, Mary Todd, declared insane. However, the letters that she had written during this time he desperately tried to destroy. I wonder why-was he trying to hide something?
It was pretty chilly this morning-we all put on our pants and jackets. I still could have used another layer though. It was also windy as we walked across the street to another part of the museum. It was a train depot that commemorated the transcontinental railroad. There wasn’t much to that little area but Anderson and Whitman enjoyed playing with the Thomas the trains that were set up.
From there we ate at Cozy Dog Drive In which is located on Route 66. We had our fill of corndogs, hot dogs and fries. Most everyone didn’t really like the corn dog batter as much as the batter of regular corn dogs. (I couldn’t really taste a difference though!) It was a fun little stop and we ended up buying about 2 too many corndogs.
We knew we had a drive ahead of us so we pottied before loading up on. The Windy City was our next sop, but it was super windy on our drive there. Robby struggled a few times to keep us in our lane as the wind blew and blew. He had to have two hands on the steering wheel most of the time,
We listened to some of our book in the car before passing out ipads. Of course, everyone had a coke to drink since we just had water in the restaurant. Those drinks added up to two bathroom stops. That was fine though since it was nice to stretch our legs for a little bit. One of the stops was at a reststop that had a playground so he kids ran to play on it for just seconds as Robby walked to the car. When he honked, they all came running as fast as they could to the car.
Traffic slowed as we neared Chicago. Our hotel tonight is near the hotel which is outside of town but the traffic was still a mess. Robby and I worked a bit on the drive trying to figure out how to best get us to the ballgame tonight.
All off of our figuring went up in smoke-well, kind of. We made it to the hotel just fine and quickly unloaded because we knew that getting to the game would take an hour or two no matter how we would get there. The original plan was to drive to a metro station that we could park at and ride the train in or to drive to the Cubs parking lot and ride their buses to the stadium.
When Robby was checking in, the hotel clerk said that he could take the hotel shuttle to the train line and it would take us to the game. She called the shuttle driver for us and then gave Robby the printed directions-well, hers included the shuttle, the train, a bus and the train again. We were about to change our minds and head to the car when the shuttle arrived and the lady told Robby that we could do it with no problem. She was from the South and commented on our manners (yes ma’ams) so we trusted her judgement.
Our hotel was almost to O’hare so we had about 15 stops (seriously) until we changed trains. Then we had about 6 or 8 before we made it to Wrigley field. It took long enough that Whitman fell sound asleep on the way. His head would bob ever time that we slowed down. I eventually had to hold him because he started to lean his head on the guy’s backpack beside him.
Wrigley Field was super close to the metro stop-we were even able to see it while we were on the train so that was nice. It didn’t take too long to find our seats in the stadium and to realize that we were going to freeze our hineys off! We were dressed as warmly as possible-jackets, pants and some even had two shirts on, but that didn’t really seem to help too much. It was like the whole stadium was a wind tunnel. I now know where Chicago gets the name “The Windy City” from. It really would have been cold no matter what we were wearing because the wind was just blowing on our faces the entire game.
We did walk around a little bit. Campbell and Graham even went off by their selves to get closer to first base. Bless Graham’s heart. Big crowds and navigating the subway make the boy so nervous. I will admit that getting on the second subway train was kind of like what you see on tv-the train was full, the platform was full, but dang it we were getting on-all 8 of us! We did have to wait on one train before we could get close enough to squeeze on, but we made it.
Anyway, when they were walking around they did have the extra phone with them, and thankfully Campbell’s coat made it easy to see her as they headed to first base and then back to us. The goal was to stay through the seventh inning stretch, and we made it.
We all sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” through shivering teeth and then we hurried out of there. There was a Subway restaurant right outside of the stadium and would you believe that it was almost empty. There was plenty of room for us to sit down and eat inside. The Cubs were behind by 1 when we left but Robby kept watch and by the time we made it to the second train, the Cubs had won the game.
It would have been nice to see them win, but it was nice to be in a warm train car headed back to the hotel. The train ride home was just as long, but didn’t seem nearly as long. Then we did have to wait on the shuttle lady to come and get us. We had to wait outside so it was little chilly-really, it was freezing. We froze! But she was there within 15 minutes and soon we were back in the hotel.
Everyone changed into their pajamas while Campbell passed out drinks and I passed out cookies. After a few minutes on ipads, it was soon time to head to bed since it was 11:30.
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