Chicago with Savage

Once a year Darren's company does a Manager Leadership Conference. This year it was in Chicago. We got spoiled as usual.

Wednesday night we went a baseball game at the Wrigleys Field. It was such a pouring mess that the game kept getting delayed.

The company rented out a whole house for us. I guess the houses are famous. All the old homes that are across the street from the stadium have been renovated. They now have bleachers on their roofs. There were 4 floors of great food. Big screen TV's everywhere... and more and more good food!
So here is the house! It was so fun. The game finally started at 9:00. We didn't' stay long since we were so exhausted.
Thursday I had the morning to myself. Darren had meetings. At the recommendation of my sister Jenny, I went running down Lake Front Drive. It was great. I ran through Navy Pier, which is so exciting with all the fun booths, food stands, and carnival attractions.
Then I just ran. I did walk a bit as I talked on the phone. But by days end I had done 15 miles! My goal was a half marathon! DONE! My legs were killing the rest of the trip. I got back to the hotel with no time to spare. Everyone (we had 500 people in our group) seemed to be trying to rush up to their rooms before we board the bus- so the lines to get on the elevators were terrible. So. ... I ran up 14 flights of stairs! I was done!
We then headed to the University of Illinois where we assembled bikes for kids in Chicago. We then went to the best museum I have ever seen. The museum of Science and Industry. The company had rented the whole museum out for us. We had dinner in three different wings of the museum. Icecream sundays in another corner. Then we had until 10:30 to roam the massive place at our leisure. We defiantly didn't see it all!

Friday- We both attended meetings in the morning. Then headed to our private showing of the Blue Man group. Darren and I rented bikes for an hour and I showed him where I had run the day before. It is a whole new sport riding a bike on an extremely crazy board walk on a Friday afternoon when all the students just got done with school for the year and head to the "beach". The night concluded with a nice formal, fancy dinner.

Saturday - fly home.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRIP- food, food and more good food. I didn't have to prepare it, or clean it up. There was so much food, I wish I could have eaten more! Also, I could just turn my brain off for 3 days. I followed the agenda, talked to people and just did whatever they told me to do. My brain and belly loved the vacation!