Our Vacation

Okay so you will have to bear with me, this is an unbelievably long post, but mainly pics, and I will try to not get too lengthy with words, in order to keep your attention!

Below is a pic of B in the SLC airport before we left (obviously)!

Isn't he cute?

Below here is B and me just before we left in the air!

As we waited for takeoff, there was some sort of orange/reflective vest gang that had grouped up outside our plane.

Below here I believe they were trying to formulate some kind of plan.

We were terrified.

More and more came, and the new comers had vehicles.

OH NO!!

Below here we were able to catch a pic of what we think is their leader.  It's obvious because he has shades and a yellow vest.  He looked mean.

After we caught his photo, we decided to play it cool and act normal.

Luckily, we got away.

Here is our takeoff.

Shortly after takeoff, I turned to B and asked him if he thought there were snakes on this plane.  He was instantly set into panic mode.

He looked under our seats and...

Luckily no snakes were found!

Below here is a neat pic of the Wasatch Front from out airplane window.

Below here is a photo of Pancakeville, it is 10 miles north of Waffletown.

In the photo below is a picture of a cloud above us and a cloud below us.

B likes to describe us as the meat in a cloud sandwich.

So we finally landed and got our butts to Chicago.

Our first night there it rained like crazy and unlucky for us we were caught out in the rain, as I previously blogged about on 6/16/09.  It was really quite fun and a good memory for us.  We took shelter in an Apple store and that was how I was able to blog to you fine blog followers about the rain.

The next day, B and I decided to go bummin'.  We had a blast.  We basically just window shopped.  We bought some rain jackets and an umbrella and then we just walked around and enjoyed the sites.

Then we went to get deep dish pizza.

We ate a pizza place called UNO.  When you get there you order your pizza first then it takes anywhere from 30 min to and hour to seat you, which is fine because it takes the cooks an hour to bake your pizza.

Below is a pic of the single size pizza that we ordered.  It was 4 cheese-tomato-pesto.  It was pretty good.

We also ordered a small UNO special.  It had mushrooms, pepperoni, green peppers, sausage, cheese and stewed tomatoes.  It too was super good.

Below is B getting ready to eat his piece.  Check out that deep dish crust!  (Steve sure is tall but look at those yuccas!)

Below here is a pic of the sign and part of the building.  We ate outside, and that was nice.

UNO is so darn popular they opened another shop just down the street called DUE.  We passed it on our way to UNO and it too was pretty darn packed!

The pizzas were super yummy, but the crust was not that great.  We did not finish our order, but we sure enjoyed what we ate of it!

Below here is a picture of a pretty cathedral.  We liked it anyway.

We took this photo after eating a UNO.  We were on our way to the Hancock Observatory.  There, we bought a City Pass that gave us access to the Observatory, The Fields Museum, The Shedd Aquarium, The Museum of Industry and Science, and some Planetarium.  We hit all places except the Museum of Industry and Science.

That night (6/17), we only did the Observatory.  It was beautiful!

Below here are several photos of the views from 1000 feet in the air.

The night we were there, Navy Pier, (pictured below) was showing fireworks.  We are not sure why, perhaps just for us.  We took a short video.

The next day (6/18) we did a lot.  We should have gotten up earlier to have more time at the three places we went, but it was our vacation and we wanted to sleep in.

Below is a picture of the Fields Museum.  This is the museum where "Night at the Museum" was filmed.

When we walked in there were these two brawling elephants, as seen behind us.  They looked mean, but we look cute and happy.  As we were!

I don't know about you but the elephant on the left doesn't look like he feels very well.

OUCH!

The next photo a T-Rex.  He was featured in the movie, he chased Ben Stiller, and boy-oh-boy, he is a mean lookin' pile o' bones!

Clearly B and I have no fear, as you see us still playing it cool in the photo below!

The next few pics are just of some of the dead stuffed animals and this one of a bat skeleton.

Man that must have been one HUGE bat!

The ape below makes me laugh.

So does this kitty-kat!

In the museum they did a part on underwater ocean life.  Below is me and how I would look to you if I were a barnacle in the sea.

And below is B, the barnacle version of course!

As we wandered through the museum we came across this Eskimo Hut thingy.  We saw two kids were up in there getting their pics, so we took some too.

This first one is just me!

Here is B and me, but you can't really see the hut so...

We had a stranger take our photo!  Luckily she didn't take off with our camera!  I have a feeling that we could have taken her down had she tried to leave with it!

As you exit the Fields Museum you are directly pointed towards Soldier Field.  This is the stadium where da Bears play.  I think they are Chicagos professional Tennis Team.

That sounds right.

We took no picture in the Planetarium.  It was kind of boring.  All we did there was go to two movies that were about a half hour long.  The first one wasn't really a movie.  It was some girl talking to us about all of the fake stars they had on the ceiling and what and where the constellations were.  We BOTH fell asleep during her presentation.

The second movie was narrated by Robert Redford.  It was called "The Cosmic Collisions".  It was much better.  We did not fall asleep for that one.

After the two movies we left the Planetarium and walked to the Shedd Aquarium, it was super close.  In fact the museum, planetarium and aquarium were all right next to each other.

On our walk to the aquarium we took some photos.

The lake in these photos is Lake Michigan.  It is huge.

Below is cute lil' us again!

We did manage to take one picture in the aquarium.  It was a super busy night at the aquarium which made that experience absolutely sucky!

In the photo below were are seen at the Shedds 4D experience of Planet Earth.  I like 3D but 4D kind of sucks.  They like squirt water at you when someone on the screen gets wet, or they blow air at you when it is windy.

At any rate, below is us in our awesome glasses.

After tripping along Chicago all day and seein' the sights, we were bummed to have it be our last night in Chicago.  It was super fun.  That night we ate at a hole in the wall called Billy Goat Tavern.  They sold burgers and hotdogs for super cheap, same prices as when they opened in like the '70's or something.  It was really good!  We enjoyed it.

The next photo is one of three taken in Indiana.  We went to Indiana on 6/19 for our first Phish show!

Here is a picture of our Garmin GPS system that saved our butts!  Also taken en route to Indiana.

Below is B driving us to Indiana.

The show was fantastic.  We got poured on by the rain.  It was a beautiful lightning storm though.  I had never seen lightning like this before.  It was absolutely amazing.  The rain really didn't even start until the last hour of the show.  By the time we got to our car after the show my shirt was so stretched it was to my mid thigh.

This too was an ultra fun memory.

The next day (6/20) we had to drive from Indiana to Wisconsin.  The drive under normal conditions is about a 5 hour drive.  However, we had the luck of hitting construction in Indiana and ridiculous traffic through the Chicago area.  This drive took us about 7 and 1/2 hours.  B did an awesome job navigating though.

The show on 6/20 was super good.  We didn't smuggle our camera into that show.  By show's end we were soooo tired.  We went to our hotel and passed out immediately.  It was still great.

Fathers day (6/21) was our last Phish show and our last night in Wisconsin.  We DID smuggle the camera in and oh what fun it was!

Below here is a picture of the marquee sign, we liked it so we photo'd it.

Here is a picture of us at the show!

Below is a video.  Someone in our section smuggled jumbo marshmallows in and started a war!

Below is a man in a clown nose fighting the good fight!

Below here is another video of the fight of the marshmallows!

Here is just a picture of the crowd in our section.

Here is Phish on stage!

Below is a video, it is kind of choppy, I took the film and I am short and kept getting knocked into.  You will enjoy the last few shots in the video!

Below is a random guy who is apparently named Roy Slot.  We took this photo because as this man passed B, B picked the tag up off his shirt, read it, and then placed it back on his shirt.  Another random guy complimented B on that maneuver about 10 minutes after that happened.

Another photo of Phish!

And another!

And another!

And below is an action shot of the crowd as they left the show!

Our vacation was simply amazing.  We are gonna try and go again to Colorado at the end of July and beginning of August.  We don't have tickets to these shows but we are going to try to buy some off of scalpers the nights of the shows.  They were selling them cheap at the shows we went to in Wisconsin and Indiana, so you never know.  We just might get lucky!

Well, you made it through my long ass post!

Congratulations!