(Yes, Carmen, I went to Chicago! Thank you for playing!)So… What do a musician from Milwaukee, a yoga instructor from Chicago, and a stay-at-home mom from Dayton have in common?
We reconnected at our 20-year high school reunion this summer. Amy and I were BFF’s way back in the day — Nathan and I were in all the music stuff together. He went on to get a graduate degree in voice and now performs on stage and composes music and sings opera, and I … ? Well, I don’t. (insert smiley face)
(I was having fun with the photo editing on picnik.com.) (It’s free!)Amy fled to Chi-town right after college and we kept in touch for years. The Hubs and I even visited her a few times up in the Big City, but then in the last five years or so we lost touch… Going to visit her again, even if it was just for a couple of days… Well. It was like we never lost those years at all! We all change, and yet we’re still the same. If anything, we’re even better.
I drove up from Dayton to Edgewater, the northern part of Chicago.
Total miles roundtrip: 638
Cost in fuel: $64.17
Total tolls roundtrip: $9.50
I did not go to Chicago to play tourist; rather, to visit my friend. We hung out at her apartment and she fed me well. Oh. my. word, she fed me well. Yummy pasta and lamb and sauteed vegetables…
…Amazing Sicilian cannoli. (They “only make ze best”.)
The motivation for visiting Chicago in the middle of the week was, however, to see Jann Klose, a friend of Nathan’s who performed at “Uncommon Ground”, a hip “slow food” restaurant in Edgewater.
The performance rocked, and so did the food. Another friend of Nathan’s joined the three of us, and we treated her to dinner as well.
Total cost of dinner out with tip (service was most excellent): $60.00.
Amy’s place was just a few blocks from Lake Michigan. Before I left, the kids and I talked about what they’d like me to bring back for them: it was unanimous.
Sand from the beach! The cheapest travel gift around, and infinitely more interesting.
I would be remiss if I did not include some “necessary” expenses that The Hubs incurred while I was away. Namely, eating out at Micky-D’s and buying donuts for him the kids.
As he explained,
“The kids were so broken up about you being gone, it was needed to keep them sane.”
Pause.
“Okay. It was required to keep me sane.”
Total Cost Breakdown:
- Gas: $64.17
- Tolls: $9.50
- Hostess Gift: $33.14
- Restaurant: $60.00
- Misc. Groceries: $15.82
- Wendy’s on the way home: $2.92
- Donuts and Micky-D’s for
The Hubsthe kids: $17.82 - Total: 203.37
Me and Amy: 1989
Me and Amy: 2009
Of course, you can’t put a price on friendship. Go ahead and pull out the tissues.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Didn't know you had another blog – what a great idea. Drooling over the cannoli's. Love them. S
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What a fun trip! I still haven't made it to Chicago, but I hear it's a lot of fun
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What fun! So happy for you. Got me thinking about some of my old friends that I would like to go and visit….muuuhahaha. Had to laugh at the laundry disaster as the same thing happened to us last year, right when the kid was coming back from college (her bedroom is in the basement…er…lower floor of our house.
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Neither one of you looks 20 years older! Also, I think that is a very good price to pay for such fun! And if all John needed was donuts he did all right too!
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