A Weekend in Sports Town

We went into Chicago this weekend to go to the Michigan/Northwestern game on Saturday. We got in on Friday night just in time to meet Shark and Jane for dinner at Messner's (Mmmm, tater tots with my turkey reuben...) in Wrigleyville. By just in time, I mean that we were able to watch the Cubs on tv clinch the National League Central Division! Even though the game wasn't in Chicago, there were enough people celebrating to warrant a helicopter to hover over the neighborhood after they clinched it.

Saturday we got up early to go to the game in Evanston. What a beautiful day for college football! A blue-fall sky with wispy clouds. Shark, Jane, Chris, Mike, Patty (Patty, you made the blog! Yeah, you wish you did.), Sarah, Scott, and our nephew Alex were all going to the game. We were going to take Patty's boat up there, but the waves were too high. So instead we jumped in our cars and headed north.

Since we got there right before the game started, we didn't have time to tailgate and just walked to the game. Our seats were on the second level, but ended up being great seats. Since there weren't people behind us, we were able to stand up and stretch our legs if we wanted. Plus, we weren't squished like we normally are in Michigan Stadium. It was great to catch up with everyone who we haven't seen in a while. We always have a lot of fun with our good friends from Chicago. Michigan pulled out the win, after another nerve wracking performance.

After the game, we walked to a restaurant/bar near the stadium. We figured that we needed to eat and also wait for traffic to die down. A lunch of spicy buffalo calamari, steak and chipotle quesadillas, and Miller Lite was just what the doctor ordered. The traffic dying down plan didn't work, however. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to make a trip that normally takes 20-30 minutes. Needless to say, when we got back to Patty's boat to regroup, we were crabby. But the beautiful breeze, a red-orange sunset and a view of my favorite skyline cured the crabbiness almost instantly...

That night we went to the Oktoberfest at the German parish of St. Alphonsus. Or we tried to. When we got there, the line was down the block. Shark and Jane were already in the fest, but it was really crowded and we didn't want to wait in line. So we talked to them through the bars of the fence while they finished their drinks. We walked down to a bar near the festival and had some drinks and food. Chris, Stein and I were home by 11:00. It was a long day!

This morning we got up and went to breakfast with Chris and Alex. One of our favorite spots for breakfast is McGee's which is near DePaul (where Alex is a freshman). McGee's has really yummy options for breakfast including a make-your-own bloody mary bar. We didn't participate in the bloody mary option, but we had some great food. Chris had a turkey club with waffle fries, Alex had a breakfast plate with eggs, bacon, ham and sausage with a biscuit and gravy, Stein had eggs benedict with steak, and I had the "Mexican Haystack" which was eggs, hashbrowns, chorizo, green onions, and eggs served with tortilla chips. It was so yummy. So yummy that Stein couldn't stop eating my leftovers!

I kind of forgot about football Sundays in Chicago. It's all about the Bears. I don't know why I forgot about this since I grew up going to the games and watching them on TV, but it struck me today as we were eating breakfast. McGee's has a ton of TVs in the bar (including little TVs at each booth) and each TV had a different NFL game on it. Groups of friends were gathering for brunch to watch football and talk about the night before. After breakfast, we dropped Chris off at a bar to meet Mike. They were going to watch the game together. We decided to go see Patty at her boat before we left town, so we drove over to the harbor. On our way, every bar (and if you know Chicago, there are lots of bars!) was packed with people clad in Bears gear.

When we got to Patty's boat, she and Paul had the game on the TV on the boat and she was frying up perch on the dock. Another gorgeous day today, too bad we had to get on the road. After a piece of yummy perch and a coke, we were on our way.

This evening we were too tired to cook, so we ordered a pizza and watched football on TV. A fitting end to a fun, sports-filled weekend.