Moooo

Friday, 8 August: I decided I had been riding my bike entirely too much for what should have been rest days, so I spent today playing housewife (oatmeal fudge bars and granola!) and trying to figure out how to vote in the Washington state primary and special elections. I'm having problems accessing the online voter information, however, so I'm kinda in the dark. Sigh. If anyone feels informed and opinionated, by all means, post a comment!

When the breadwinner got home, she took me out to a bar called the Hopleaf (http://hopleaf.com/). They had a SIXTEEN PAGE beer menu. I was overwhelmed. They had at least eight beers from my favorite brewery, Dogfish Head (http://www.dogfish.com/). I ordered a CB&J, which was a grilled cashew butter and jam sandwich with morbier cheese on sourdough. Yum! Now I feel less weird for all of those toasted PB&J with cheddar sandwiches that I have eaten. If they're serving it in a restaurant, other people must be willing to eat it too.

Saturday, 9 August: Cuz and I rode our bikes downtown and checked out some touristy stuff. We both have a fairly low tolerance for that stuff, so we were kinda like "seen it, move on." The Sears Tower seemed like a requirement, but it was also a bit of an ordeal. I bet it's less bad on a weekday, but the wait on Saturday afternon was pretty nasty. It's a good thing we enjoy talking to each other, because we had a lot of time to do that while being herded like cats through tons of those little airport security-type mazes. In fact, the second maze, out of seven (? I think), was for security, but we didn't have to take off our shoes. There was even a long line for the elevator to get out, and one last line before we could escape the building. Whew! My cousin had never been there before, she had only been to the John Hancock building, which also has an observation deck, and is only slightly shorter. Since it's not as famous outside of Chicago, it is a less hectic way to see the city, so keep that in mind if you go there. The view was great, though, and we were able to see a big rainy area moving kind of toward us, although we somehow managed to not get rained on.

There are a lot of cool sculptures scattered around the city, and many lovely parks and greenspaces. Navy Pier is eh. Buckingham Fountain was pretty, although the scheduled 6:30 show did not appear to be happening. The free trolley system is handy, but pretty crowded.

Of course we had a headwind on the way home, and my cousin commented that she now understood why so many of my blog entries are about wind. We managed to make it home before dark, so yay, us!