Day 8: Chicago (NL)

Seeing a game from the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field is nice, seeing it from a luxury box is even nicer. We were fortunate enough to have seats in the Chase Suite for the game tonight between the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros. The Astros dominated from start to finish, winning 9-2. They scored in every odd inning of the game, while Andy Pettitte pictched 7 solid innings for the visitors. I took the Cubs, since Ben cannot cheer for them, so he gets the win and we are even at 3-3 in picking games.



The Chase Suite was an incredible experience. Upon walking in, there was a large-screen plasma television, along with another smaller t.v., and several heated containers of food. Our choices included hotdogs, chicken wings, brautwurst, BBQ, and quesadillas, accompanied by plates of fresh fruits and vegetables, and bowls of popcorn and potato chips. In the refridgerator, there was as much free soda and beer as we wanted. A special thanks to Nancy Yawitz for inviting us to the game.



We left Detroit this morning at around 8:00am, and after struggling through some morning traffic, made it to Chicago around 1:00. This included my 1st turn behind the wheel, which was relatively uneventful considering my lack of experience driving a stick-shift. The only hitch came when I was accelerating on the on-ramp and managed to go from 2nd gear to 5th gear in one motion. After picking up the tickets from the Chase Building downtown, we headed to the Riordan's for some Thai food as our afternoon meal.

The Cubs website recommended that we use public transportation to get to Wrigley, so we rode the METRA train down to Union Station before getting on the subway which took us right to the ballpark. It was interesting to get the local taste of the public transit system, and was relatively easy to use overall. Still, we managed to miss our last exit by 1 stop, and had to get a ride back to the Riordan house courtesy of Rachel.



While walking in bewteen stops on the public transit system, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a quick snack. You would think it would be relatively quiet at 11:15pm, but shortly after entering a quarrel ensued between the worker and a customer who insisted, "You charged me more for less! Do you think I can't add!?!?!" At which point the non-English speaking worker replied, "unknown phrase with heavy accent at the top of his lungs."

Here are the statistical updates:
1-end of day odometer: 19, 372
2-miles traveled today: 348
3-miles traveled total: 2,729
4-states traveled in today: Michigan, Indiana, Illinois
bonus stat: the home team has scored a run in their last inning at bat in every game we have seen so far