Rest Day

After granting myself a generous extra portion of sleep by not waking up until after 10:00, I headed out to run some errands on Michigan Avenue (Chicago's Magnificent Mile). I replaced my iPod charging unit (if you have an iPod, I suggest doing so - it's free and apparently the old ones can break off in an outlet), bought some shaving cream, and continued to strike out in searching for a pair of jeans in my size that I like both the fit and wash of. Along the way, I ran across the Nike store. I thought it was really cool that the day after the marathon they had covered their storefront with a large mural/poster that included the names of all the 45,000 or so runners.



We met back up at our hotel to walk to lunch. Along the way, we saw the most striking view of the new Trump Tower yet. I definitely agree with Nate that in a way it's an eyesore. It's so much mirror-glass and modern design, it doesn't quite fit with the flavor of the city. It's definitely quite the building regardless.



For lunch we had some Chicago-style hot dogs with all the fixings. They weren't particularly memorable, but now I can say I've had them.



We followed up lunch with some melt-in-your-mouth Garrett caramel corn.



After lunch and dessert, Nate and I walked back to the hotel, where we proceded to do nothing (which in this case includes watching cable news channels and surfing the net) for hours until dinnertime. It was refreshing to sit around and do nothing for a while after basically not having had a true day off for 11 days.



For dinner, we went to Gino's East (a pizza place, of course). The pizza was very tasty. They use one large sausage patty covering the entire pizza much like some of the other pizzerias in they city. Now our Chicago style pizza tour is complete. We've hit the most famous three: Lou Malnati's, Giordano's, and Gino's East. The walls at Gino's East are covered with writing and etchings. It's ironic that they encourage it, yet the bathroom door has a sign on it asking customers to avoid writing anything on the bathroom walls.



After dinner I relaxed in the hotel's hot tub for a bit (I should really be making more use of these since most hotels we stay at have them) and wrote the weekend event recap. Tomorrow we'll head into Michigan, where eventually we'll end up in Detroit for the Detroit Free Press Marathon.