How To Drive All Over Chicagoland Without Seeing A Thing. Almost.

You people never cease to amaze me.

I slipped a little somethin’ somethin’ into yesterday’s post, wondering if anyone would catch it, and I was thrilled when I got Sue’s comment:

“The most perplexing part of your post was this: ‘most of which were closed (I didn’t check hours and such before we got on the road)’ You are the organized travel/event queen! Could there be a chink in your armor?”

Well SUE, of course there could be! I’m not perfect, you know!

Here’s what happened. It was a Friday in the summer, a couple of years ago. Julesie was not working that day, and so we arranged to take the boys on a field trip, hitting a few Chicagoland fun spots that we hadn’t tried before. Like an idiot, I PLANNED (see, Sue knows!) a great itinerary that would start us on the north side of Chicago and eventually get us to the south side.

NOTE: Don’t try this at home.

First stop? Superdawg, for lunch. (“Hiya!”) Yum.

And yes, Superdawg was open. We enjoyed our delicious all-beef hot dogs and french fries, served to us in our car by a very friendly car hop.

After lunch, we headed to a magic shop further into the city. Traffic was a…bear. (Friday, you know.) It took us forever and a day (<---slight exaggeration. Maybe only half of forever and a day.) to get there, and when we finally found it, it was open, but we couldn't find any parking. None. Nada. Zilch. So we ditched to go on to the next thing, which was The Boring Store. (Yes, you’ll have to click it. So cool.) We were really, really excited to check out this place because it’s a supplier of spy gadgets and other such awesomeness, all sold in plain brown packaging supposed to be pretty boring.

Again? TRAFFIC.

The great news? We found parking right in front.

Yay!

The bad news? We practically ran to the door, grabbed the handle to open it, and couldn’t budge it. Closed.

Boo!

Silly us: we thought it was part of the ruse and tried to find a secret entrance, but alas, there was none. The store was closed.

So let me do a recap.

Superdawg for lunch: check!
Lots of traffic.
No parking by the magic shop.
Lots of traffic.
The Boring Store is closed.

By this time, we had one activity left, and it was all the way on the south side. This was poor planning. It was Friday, and the place might as well have been in Europe. I don’t remember exactly how long it took us to get to the Original Rainbow Cone, but I DO remember that we were in standstill traffic on Western Avenue alone for at least ninety minutes.

I had a work meeting that evening and I was totally stressed out. (Did I mention that, in the morning when we left, I was worried that I sped by one of those interstate speed cameras and thought I’d be getting a $300 speeding ticket in the mail two weeks later? No? Well, there you go.)

You know it’s been a bad day when your kids are in the back seat saying, “Mom, really, we don’t NEED ice cream. We can go home!”

It was too late. I felt like Clark Griswold (NSFW!) when he went berserk in the car (though I wasn’t taking anything out on my kids!). I was determined that we would get a freakin’ delicious ice cream cone if it killed us. We were too close to turn around for home.

In the end, we got that freakin’ delicious ice cream cone, and it was one of the best I’ve ever tasted. We ordered them to go, and after a whopping ten minutes out of the car, we headed towards home, arriving there about ninety minutes later, exhausted and in disbelief that we drove all day to eat hot dogs and ice cream.

At least it was memorable, right?

Oh, and one more thing. What I wrote in yesterday’s post about how “most” of the places were closed?

1. It only seemed like it.

AND

2. That was not the first time that summer that we headed out to have fun and realized I didn’t check hours. It was the third. You’d think I’d learn.

©2010 Suburban Scrawl