Susan’s Journal

First we hopped on our free flight to Arkansas. It was free because Bud got it with his Frequent Flier Miles. It was a tiny plane, and we were across the aisle from each other, but hey… it meant we both had an aisle seat! It was a small, uneventful flight, and in fifty-one minutes we were in Arkansas.

We were in Arkansas longer than we were on the plane. Originally, we were to only have an hour layover; but they were offering vouchers for people to wait, so we waited! Instead of having lunch in Chicago, we had it in the beautiful Arkansas airport, and we have $600 worth of travel vouchers to show for it. Let me tell you: if you’re ever in that airport in Arkansas, and you go to that only little food place that has sandwiches, get the tuna salad croissant. It is absolutely to die for. Sometimes it’s the little things.

We arrived in Chicago, arrived at our hotel, and then decided to go on an adventure: find the Apple store in Chicago, and see if I could get my iPhone screen replaced. See, about three months ago I dropped it flat on its face on the cement garage floor, and the screen spiderweb-shattered. I had been told it would be $200 to replace the phone–that they couldn’t just replace the screen–unless I took it to an after-market place, which I really didn’t want to do. Also, since the new iPhone was sure to come out in a few months, I just couldn’t see spending the money. So I went back to my old first-gen iPhone that couldn’t take video (*gasp*), couldn’t send MMS photo messages (*choke*), and couldn’t have the new iOS 4 phone operating system (*faint*). I limped along with it for three months; but then an AT&T store associate friend of ours, and Bud–wonderful Bud, said, “Why don’t we give it a try?”

So we parked, and we walked. We walked a mile… in the wrong direction. Then we walked back the way we should have gone, where the Apple store had actually only been a few blocks from the car, and we walked right by Michigan Avenue. What’s so special about Michigan Avenue in July, you ask? Well, they were filming the new Transformers movie. I saw smoke… piled-up cars… crowds of people gaping… and I was worried… until I overheard a man, standing near a red light, saying, “Yeah, it’s Transformers. They’re filming Transformers down there.” We confirmed this heresy several times over the course of the evening. Cool stuff–probably the closest I’ve ever been to the filming of a movie. In fact, we walked directly beneath it–beneath the bridge, where it was being filmed on the bridge above us.

We finally found the Apple store, thanks to Bud’s new iPhone 4 with GPS. This means a little blue bong-ing dot, like that on a submarine, showed us where we were walking. Who was there to greet us at the Apple store? Shia LeBouf! Well, it wasn’t really Shia himself; it was just a gigantic GQ magazine cover right inside the store entrance; but it was still pretty cool.

After an hour of walking, and walking in the wrong direction, and the muggy heat, and the haven’t-had-dinner-yet-and-it’s-eight, I was a little cranky. Not like bite-your-head-off cranky, but just bleah-I’m-tired-leave-me-alone cranky. We waited in line, to find out we were in the wrong line, then headed upstairs to the right line, to wait, and find out that we’d have to go on a list, and it would probably be half an hour. In Apple speak, that meant it would be at least an hour. I’ve learned this by now. The lady was nice enough–very nice, in fact–but I wasn’t sure I wanted to wait at that point. Let’s just go, I told Bud. Let’s just stay, he said to me. So we stayed… and oh I love my Bud, I’m so glad we did.

We got a nice, friendly, skinny young guy, who gasped when he saw the spider-web shattered screen; and when he saw how tired I was, he said well normally we charge $200 to replace the screen, but I’m going to take care of it. I could have kissed him–well, if I was single, and he was twenty years older. Ten minutes later, he came back, and there was this beautiful, working, crystal-clear iPhone 3Gs. Not the latest and greatest, but darnit it’s my phone, and it works and it’s awesome.

“I wanted to let you know that when I did open it up, I did find some water damage,” he said to me. “There’s going to be a four hundred dollar charge for the repair because of it.”

I looked up at him. I stared blankly. I didn’t get it. Then Bud busted out laughing. The guy was pulling my leg. Whew… and darnit at the same time. At least I had my phone.

Bud knew I was extremely hungry and tired, and he did a wonderful thing for me–he found the closest Buffalo Wild Wings. We had wings, we drank Diet Coke, and we played Buzztime Trivia. All was right with the world.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. It was complimentary, thanks to Bud’s triple-black-diamond-platinum traveller status. I picked out waffles and potatoes, but when I got to the table where the syrup was, I only found a just-about-empty bottle of sugar free syrup. I went back to our table, and there was Bud, waiting for me with a great big full bottle of sugar free syrup. My Bud.

Our first order of business for the day was a pre-check of where we would park for the concert. We discovered it would be $20 to park right at the place, or it would be freeeee to park at one of the train stations and take one of the chartered busses to the Ravinia. We chose the latter, and picked the lot where we would park.

Now it was off to Milwaukee. Why Milwaukee? Why, because we hadn’t been there before. It sounded like a neat idea to make the short one-hour drive and take a tour of a brewery–something we could say we had done. On the way, we saw two things of interest–an apparent military craft graveyard, and a cheese castle. I dropped pins on my practically-new iPhone 3Gs map (hooray!) and we continued on our way.

The brewery tour was pretty darn cool. We learned about the Miller family, about how they made soft drinks to survive through prohibition, and the thing I thought was the coolest–literally–the underground caves that they packed with winter mountain ice to keep the beer cool in the summertime. How neat is that? We had our pictures taken, and we had three free beers–which we really only drank one of–and we were off on our way again.

The first stop was the Cheese Castle. It was a store, it was a castle, and it was full of cheese… and summer sausages… and candy. It was actually pretty neat. Bud picked out some meats and stuff he liked, and we headed on down the road.

About fifteen minutes later we headed off the road to what ended up being the Russell War Museum. Bud said it was the biggest collection of Sherman tanks he had ever seen in one place. There were helicopters, hummers, and Higgins boats (oh my!) Even though I’m not a huge history buff like Bud is, I have to admit I was pretty darn impressed. I asked all kinds of questions, and I learned all kinds of neat things.

Dinner was back near our hotel at an irish place called Hackney’s. I had a burger, and Bud had a steak. Sorry, Hackney’s, but it was nothing spectacular.

We freshened up and headed out to our parking place–Parking Lot C. A shuttle bus took about twenty of us and dumped us off in front of the Ravinia. We weren’t prepared for what we saw.

There were thousands of people there. I mean thousands and thousands and thousands. I think I heard that there were fifty thousand people there. The Ravinia is like a giant park, and there just happens to be a pavilion there where they hold concerts. So 90% of the people there could *hear* the music, but couldn’t *see* anything. I couldn’t understand going to a Sting concert without getting to see the show.

I didn’t have to worry. Bud got good tickets–really good. We had no idea where we were going, so we stopped a young lady who worked there, and her eyes got big. “You guys haven’t been here before, have you?” she asked. We shook our heads. “You’re waaaay down there,” she said. She pointed, and we walked. We were only about twenty rows from the stage. I was very thrilled.

We put down our t-shirts and programs and watched an incredible show–Sting with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. They played a wide, wide variety of his music–from The Police all the way up to now–and I loved it all. Out of about twenty songs, I think there were two I didn’t know. It was definitely the best Sting concert I’ve ever been to.

…and I had my Bud there with me too.

When we arrived at the show, the sun was going down. When we left the show, it was pitch dark. Of course, all fifty thousand people left the show at the same time. Of course, all of them wanted to get on shuttle busses to their cars. Of course, the line was a half mile long–no joking–by the time we got to it.

How far away can our car possibly be? We started to wonder. Then we started to wander. We asked several parking lot attendants, and we got everything from “you guys can hoof it easy” to “it’s far. It’s like, real far.” Out came the iPhone 4 again, and between Bud and I we plotted a course to the lot where the car was. Two miles. That’s nothing! It took us half an hour, and it was an awesome, fun, giggly, conversation-filled half hour. It was one of my favorite parts of the weekend; and I guarantee, by the time we got to our car, I still wouldn’t have been to the front of that long line.

A stop at 7-Eleven was essential–we were both parched and looking for snacks. It was just the icing on the cake of what was a wonderful evening.

We flew home the next morning. The weekend was fun, full of memories, and very very wonderful.

- Posted from my iPad