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Our friends, Cuda and Mikey, were nice enough to invite a bunch of netscum to their place in Gurnee (that's pronounced Gur-NEE), Illinois, for New Year's Eve festivities. A bunch of us refused to leave and stayed through until Sunday.
Although Chicago experienced their second worst blizzard in history on Saturday, January 2, 1999, that didn't stop eleven crazy people from going to the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit at the Field Museum of Natural History!
Cuda and Mikey had two four-wheel drive vehicles, so we all piled into them to make the trip to the Metra station a few miles away. Although it was snowing furiously and the wind was howling, it never occurred to us to cancel our trip! Here we are getting on the train...
We arrived downtown with little trouble. Well, a little trouble. We couldn't understand the names of the stops when they were called out. Where the heck is "Fuzzbutt, Illinois" anyway? And why did they suddenly call out "Love you!"? Mysteries...
This picture is at our arrival at Union Station. The lighting was really funky, giving us all an "alien" type glow.
With eleven in our group, we figured we would need to get several taxis to take us from Union Station to the Field Museum. While we were milling about, a nice man came over and asked if we needed a van. YES! We all piled in, and he took off like a bat out of hell, paying no mind to the deep snow on the road and the lack of visibility.
When we reached Lakeshore Drive, there was a squad car blocking our way. It seems they had closed the road. No amount of talking from Mikey could convince them to let us through, so we did what all insane people would do. We walked the half mile to the museum.
The people in the above photo are, from left to right, Rick (Cowpoke) in red & black coat; Cheezie (who looks like his floppy ears are sticking out); Cuda in long black coat; Frank in off white coat with hood; CrowDog in leather jacket and red cap; Pooder kind of peeking out over CrowDog's shoulder; Skiv (Penny might be standing next to him, you can just see the tip of her hat); Sparky; Mikey in bright blue jacket. I'm behind the camera.
Unfortunately, they didn't allow any cameras at the exhibit, so I have no photos to show you. I will say, though, that if you get the chance to see this exhibit, it is well worth it. Even worth braving a blizzard.
While we were exploring the rest of the museum, they announced that they would be closing due to the storm. There were a few anxious moments when museum staff told Mikey that all public transportation had been shut down. We had visions of all piling into a hotel room downtown! Mikey got on his cell phone and called the train station. After many many busy signals, he finally got through. Then he was on hold quite a while. I could see the relief on his face when they told him that the trains were running. And on time!
Mikey had gotten the taxi driver's card and called him to pick us up again to take us back to Union Station. Cuda had re-injured her knee walking through the deep snow, so museum staff allowed the van to pull up to the employee's entrance and pick us up. The ride back to Union Station was exciting as we were following what we dubbed an EDU. That's a police van that was rushing a load of donuts back to the station--an Emergency Donut Unit!
Since the museum had let most of their staff go home, we were unable to get any food there and had feasted on the wonderful things that vending machines had to offer. That meant we were still hungry. We decided to get something to eat at the bar/restaurant at Union Station. Surprisingly, the meatloaf that CrowDog and I had was quite tasty! We did have one minor altercation, though, when the bartender refused to serve Mikey. Mikey walked away and the bartender called the police. To make a long story short, the police officer and Mikey talked to the manager of the place and Cuda got her drink free.
The trip home was just as silly as the trip into the city with everyone joking around. We must have been quite entertaining because Sparky said she was watching a guy who tried to act like he wasn't listening to us. The occasional slight smile was a giveaway. He finally put his laptop away (someone said he was playing solitaire anyway) and openly watched us. We even interested our dorky conducter. He kept coming through and trying to join in but, unfortunately, we'd all shut up...
Here's a group picture. I couldn't fit everyone in, so Cheezie and Penny are missing from the left side of the photo. Sparky has her back to us in the front because she and Pooder were intent on completing the crossword puzzle in the newspaper they'd found.
The return trip was so exciting that Penny couldn't take any more and finally just checked out... Note the rabbit ears that group members were prone to growing.
The next day we needed to dig out from the tons of snow that had fallen the day before. This picture shows CrowDog and Mikey starting to take the snowblower apart. It seems that it balked when Mikey tried to snowblow through the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune...
This is Penny shoveling the remainder of the front walk. Cuda and Mikey had had a cute plastic penguin on the front steps, decorated for Christmas. When the snowstorm hit, it disappeared. Penny saved the day when her shoveling unearthed the poor thing. It was buried under the snow to the left.
Here's Skiv trying to take a toy away from the dog. I don't remember who won the tug 'o war! You'll notice that the TV has the weather channel on. We were all wondering if we'd get home later that day!
Here's a bunch of energetic people! That's Penny, Cuda, Sparky sitting on the floor, and Pooder. I don't know if Pooder is in mid-blink, squinting at the TV, or falling asleep! Since he seems to be holding his coffee cup with no trouble, I'll vote for either squinting or blinking.
I'd like to thank Cuda and Mikey for the wonderful weekend and all their hard work in coordinating this trip to the museum. We owe ya one!