Maggie's friend Patti got married this past weekend. We made a nice little trip up there to witness the occasion. The destination was a little town, Wheaton, Illinois, about 40 minutes to an hour from downtown Chicago. It didn't start off so well.
Upon entering Iowa, we encountered a pretty heavy rain. Cars pulled off the road in bunches, but I thought slowing down to about 40MPH was enough. The major part of the storm passed quickly enough, but we encountered more rain after getting on I-80. Then for a good stretch, and for no reason, traffic halted to a dead stop. Every so often it would pick back up again and then out of nowhere it would stop again. It wasn't rush hour. It was a Friday afternoon. There was no construction. There was no explanation.
We stayed at the Hilton. It was right off the highway and about 5 minutes away from the venue, those were its only perks. We dropped off our luggage in the room and went to the hotel bar for a late dinner. The beer selection was pitiful. I know it's just a hotel, and it's just a Hilton, but we were in close proximity to some great breweries, so I was hoping for something better than standard offerings. I had the Goose Island 312, their best option. I got the bottom of the keg, about a fourth of a glass. Good fortune number one. That beer was free. The keg was changed, and then I got a full beer.
We went back to the room for the night to relax. Other patrons made that difficult. There were about 100 other weddings going on that weekend in the same area, so there were about 1,000 other people in our hall making noise. Doors opening. Doors slamming. People talking. They didn't even have to talk loud for us to hear every word they said. I think the doors were hollow. There was a wedding party across the hall and the room next door. People kept going in and out and talking back and forth until about 2:00AM at the earliest. The bed was deceiving. Initially it seemed very comfortable, but after about five minutes of laying in it, any semblance of comfort disappeared and it was a constant adjustment to find some position that you could sleep in. A little later Saturday morning, and I only mean a little. About 7:15AM. Doors resumed opening and slamming. Sleep was elusive.
We took our time getting up. We had breakfast/lunch at Panera before heading out to IKEA to get a desk for the den. I had never been to an IKEA before, and it was something else. It's like taking a Bed Bath & Beyond, adding a Home Depot and a Nebraska Furniture Mart. They have two levels of show floor and then the warehouse area where you fetch the bigger items you picked out earlier. I didn't last very long before going into a daze.
On the way back we decided to stop at the store to get some snacks. There was what looked like a supermarket, Super H Mart, near the Panera so that's where I headed. To say the least, it wasn't what we expected. As soon as we got inside, we were the only white people around. Not ever seeing this store before, I had no idea that Super H Mart is an Asian supermarket. They have your standard produce, but not your standard snacks. So we headed out to a Whole Foods for some more familiar goodies.
To the wedding! It was outside at some historic location fully equipped with the smell of horse shit. Literally. It was an equestrian lot, with an historic house that now has a reception hall attached to it. The ceremony was outdoors in a fenced-in area in front of two large trees. A nice setting really. Their dog Chewie was the ring bearer. Everything went pretty smoothly, except for a crazy old bat doing running commentary throughout.
The reception followed in the adjacent house. Everyone forced their way to the alcohol. Maggie and I got a couple of drinks and wandered the grounds. Meanwhile we missed the call to grab table assignments. Little did we know some assholes decided to take our assigned seats. Upon confrontation we received blank stares. One girl, rather pathetically I might add, looked around at the others while stammering some words about how confused she was, but nobody tried to help her. She sounded intoxicated, so at least she had an excuse. We wandered a couple tables down and grabbed some random seats. It must have been the table that was supposed to be where the people who took our seats were supposed to sit, because nobody bothered us about it. Good work on our part too, since we had about a 5% chance of that with at least 20 tables (we were supposed to be at table 19). It turns out that this was for the better though, because we ended up with an uncle, aunt and some cousins of the groom. They were extremely nice and accommodating. Everything after that was pretty normal. Dancing, drinking, people making out in the photo booth. This night we were able to get to sleep. Too bad the maids tried to barge in the door the next morning. Two knocks and no pause.
On to Sunday. We visited my Grandma. She lives in Round Lake Heights, about 1 hour and 20 minutes to the north. It was great to see her, it had been too long since the last time. She got to meet Maggie. We sat around the kitchen table and she brought me up to date on everyone else in the family. She gave Maggie the grand tour. We looked at photos my aunt had taken and given to Grandma as a gift, there were lots of good shots. She took us out to dinner in Fox Lake at a lakeside restaurant. We sat on the deck. It was a most magnificent evening, the weather was perfect. After dinner, we went down to the shore and watched some kids skip rocks. Or throw them at the wildlife. We went back to her house and looked at a few more family photos before we headed back to the hotel.
It was Monday. Time to head home. We went to breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We sipped on our coffee while we waited for our food. Nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, except the power went out. Nobody bothered to explain anything. A few minutes later our food arrived, but Maggie didn't get her toast. They said we would know why. They gave her a couple of bite sized danishes instead. We ate in the dark and wondered if a generator would kick in. It turns out the generator doesn't serve the restaurant. Like our table situation at the wedding though, this turned out for the best. Our meals were on the house.
The drive home was without a hitch. We stopped at the Hamburg Inn #2, in Iowa City, for lunch. Excellent choice. Our next excellent choice was stopping off at El Rancho in Westport for dinner. Then it was on home. Where we were greeted with spiders, crickets, and fleas. Yes, fleas. Even though he was long gone, Simon the cat had attracted a pest. We turned the air conditioner to 80 while we were gone and they incubated and multiplied in our warm apartment. They're still here despite spraying bug instakill all over the carpet and Maggie vacuumed the whole floor and couch. The exterminator came Tuesday, but they're still here. They might be guests for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment