I loved the warm, cherry wood decore of the Chicago Athletic Association hotel. Fun spot to stay right in downtown Chicago.
MEA 2021 Road Trip Day 1: Drive to Chicago
Weather: Cool in the morning. Nice and clear weather all day. Nice in Chicago.
- 6:00a Departed on schedule!
- 6:36a Enter Wisconsin
- 10:33a Enter Illinois
- 11:35a Lunch at Lou Malnati’s. The fact we can drive from our house in the morning and have lunch in Chicago blows my mind! 🤯
- 1:49p Visit Shedd Aquarium
- 4:15p Check in at Chicago Athletic Association.
- 5:30p Dinner at Game Room in the hotel.
- 7:00p Magical evening at the Magic Parlour! 🪄
Part of MEA 2021 collection.
Another amazing night of magic with Dennis Watkins at The Magic Parlour! My third time and it still blows my mind.
This is up close magic and we got to be part of things:
- Tyler picked one of the six starting numbers, 3!
- Jamie got to be part of the mentalist section, selecting three items at random from the audience: REI Member card, Tyler’s retainer box, and back scratcher. Watkins got them all!
- Tyler got to shake the dice in the shot glass. Rolled a 6!
- Mazie got to pick the order of the cards that went up his sleeve and into his pocket.
- Tyler identified one of the 10 cards, 10 of ♠️.
If you are in Chicago I highly recommend taking the whole family to this.
Related: Magic Parlour via Zoom.
“Have Dreams”. Message on 300 East Randolph in Chicago.
Chicago skyline from Shedd Aquarium.
Great afternoon visiting the Shedd Aquarium. Always one of my favorite places in Chicago.
The iPhone 13 Pro wide-angle lens is really nice for shooting aquarium scenes.
In Chicago so need to have some Chicago-style deep dish! Stop at Lou Malnati’s in Schaumburg for lunch! Chicago Classic (half just cheese). Yum!
Tomorrow morning we take off for our MEA 2021 Road Trip. We are stopping in Chicago, Louisville, and Indianapolis! 🛣
My book club enjoyed a delightful walk in Wood-Rill SNA tonight discussing Nature & Walking by Emerson and Thoreau.
Mazie did some parking lot driving for the first time tonight! We found an empty parking lot and did start / stop, figured out some basic turning, and a little backing up. She did really great!
Tyler introduced the family to Machi Koro tonight and we had a great time playing it. Easy to learn, fast to play, and fun strategy options.
Mazie doing homework.
Mazie: Dad, do you know what a polyatomic ion is?
Me: Ahhhh, no.
Me now reading Wikipedia.
Officially entered into that stage where your kids homework is too hard for me.
We had a nice campfire tonight and then decided to watch a DVD in the camper. We picked The Great Outdoors. Some good laughs, but a lot of pretty bad movie in between. 🤣😬
We visited Willow River State Park in Wisconsin for the first time today. We all were impressed with the falls. I even got to watch some trout working their way upstream.
These Kunekune pigs are so friendly and filled with character. They like their tummies scratched just like a dog. At Sunrise Farm.
Hanging out with Nigerian Dwarf goats today. Yes, the goat jumped into the Tesla trunk all on his own. 🐐 At Sunrise Farm.
The extent to which Shortcuts on iOS 15 is broken is shocking. Any moderately complex shortcut will randomly fail from one execution to another, with multiple different error conditions. It is unusable in current form.
Just got my flu shot! First time I’ve gotten one. The pandemic experience educated me on the importance of it. 💉
Our family created an all original custom jigsaw puzzle together! 🧩 We finished the box design and ordered 50 puzzles tonight. Celebration City is the first Jiggy Thing Puzzle! Zoomed in view of Ant Hotel shown here. 🤩
On “my” Internet Facebook and all of its properties are blocked every day, so I didn’t realize they had some downtime today. The Internet works just fine, better even, without it.