Since I was a little kid and we’d visit my Aunt Ruby & Uncle Leland in Chicago, I wanted to see the Sears Tower. And then I got a best friend from Chicago (judiang of course) so you’d think I’d have a much better chance at seeing the Sears Tower. Except that Judi works less than a block from the Sears Tower and she hates going to her workplace when she’s on vacation. But, since she loves me, every year she’d promise to take me there. Alas, every year she’d not do that. It became a running joke after awhile.

But this year was different. Today she finally took us to see her workplace *and* to see the Sears Tower. elsaf already has photos up of the trip, so click here to see them. (I should get mine up tomorrow morning.)

We headed off to Gourmand Coffee House for brunch and I ordered an egg sandwich (w/ bacon & cheese) and a croissant. I had orange/mango juice with it. Breakfast was $7.50. We’d all brought our computers to the cafe since Judi said we’d be able to go online from there. Unfortunately, it cost $3 to be online for 1 hour. Judi went ahead and paid to geek, but I just sat & read some of Day of the Triffids, which is an e-book I bought for the laptop. I’m just a cheap bastard. After awhile, we moved on back to the apartment to drop off computers.

The next goal was to go to Judi’s work and the Sears Tower. It’s a nice walk – Judi’s fortunate to be able to walk to work. The Tower was cool – even though today was the cloudy/rainy day, it was still phenomenal to see Chicago from above. We saw Judi’s place (also marked on Elsa’s post) and lots of the places that we visited. Everything looked so close – except that the long ass bridge still looked long ass.

After the Tower, we moved on to Books A Million and I got Obliviously On He Sails by Calvin Trillin. When I finish reading it, I’ll give it to dad as a belated b-day gift. It’s a great collection of political poetry, most of which is funny and none of which is pro-Bush. We saw the guy on The Daily Show and we all agreed it was a book worth getting. (Alas, they only had two copies, and Elsa & I snagged those. Judi already read Elsa’s copy, so she’s sated for now.)

We returned to the Dearborn area and decided to get a snack at Hackney’s before crashing. We each ordered the chocolate chip cookie sundae – yummy! $6 a piece. I then walked to Taste of Siam to get a to-go menu so we could order supper. With all the rain, we opted to stay home tonight and watch the fireworks on TV. We returned to the flat and crashed. Judi and I slept and Elsa wrote.

At 6:30, Elsa called our order in and then I walked to the restaurant to pick it up. We got pad thai (of course) with tofu, pad see eiuw with shrimp, seafood curry, ginger chicken, and spring rolls. Strawberry smoothie for Judi and Mango smoothie for me. It was $15 a piece. All was very tasty and best of all, Judi got leftovers! Elsa and I took Lance to the White Hen to buy some decadent ice cream for munching on while we watch fireworks. There’s less than half an hour to go for the fireworks. We’re gonna sit in the dark with our glow-necklaces and watch the fireworks. Where it’s dry. 🙂