Day something of vacation, my brain can't count

And, here we are. We woke up at our initial Chicago hotel and busted it out of there just in time for AM traffic. We drove north up Lakeshore Drive as our first order of business was finding Wrigley Field which, all apologies to Disney, is the happiest place on earth. Holy cow, it's awesome. We took a 10 AM tour of the park and got to see pretty much everything except the innards of the scoreboard. Sat in the stands, went into the pressbox and saw the organ, broadcast booths, etc. Went into the visitor's locker room. Went and sat out in the bleachers in right field. Walked through the Cubs locker room. Sat in the Cubs dugout and stood on the field behind home plate. And took a million pictures. Way too cool. Saw all the statues, pictures, etc. Awesome awesome awesome. Went and check into our hotel for the next 3 night. The Majestic Chicago. The true mark of hotel awesomeness is how the sleeping goes, but this place seems off to a good start. Nice little place that is probably pretty easy to overlook but seems quite great. Stay here if you visit the city. Good part of town and everything. We then hightailed if over to the Shedd Aquarium which was neat. The kids (especially Kate) liked it and it was fine by the parents. Pretty busy, but some neat stuff including a giant anaconda among other freaky critters. We played in some random stretch of grass afterwards just to burn off energy because we haven't walked, hiked, and climbed enough quite yet on this trip. Also, the wind coming off Lake Michigan is no joke. We all also got our first taste of the El which was OK. Busy and public transport is not our favored mode of transport. This may be the first trip we have ever taken where we chose public transport over just walking, solely out of deference to the shorter legged among us. Sorry kids, but pretty sure you'll inherit the crazy walking gene from your parents. We are both equally to blame for that. Back to the hotel and then a half mile stroll to IHOP where no food was left untouched and Drew may have eaten a plate or two. He was beyond focused on what he wanted. As soon we mentioned it as an option, he laid out his menu. Made it come to fruition once we got there (the Rooty Jr with spiced apples for those keeping score). Good server too, no complaints. All in all, an A day in terms of seeing stuff. An A day in terms of totally wearing out anyone currently awake or asleep in this hotel room as I type away. And, we'll pretty much ramp it up again tomorrow.

Vacation day 3 - Start with C, ends with O, and has hicag in the middle

And zero percent of the people reading this have any idea where that came from.

Here we sit in Chicago. How did we get here?

We woke up around 7 in Jeffersonville, Indiana and ate breakfast. Then, we went back south about 3 miles to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory tour? How long does it take you to go 3 miles? Took us about an hour since one of the 3 bridges that crosses the Ohio River was shut down on Friday due to concerning cracks. Comforting. No big deal for us though. We toured and saw how bats get made and we even got free souvenir mini-bats which, as a low end guess, will be taken away from Drew and Ben 10 times in their lives when they are used as weapons.

After that it was a 3 hour drive when we stopped halfway and hung out in Lafayette, Indiana (home of Purdue) and stopped at Columbiana Park and Zoo which is a pretty awesome gigantic playground and free small zoo in the middle of a town that feels a bit like Humboldt. No mailboxes, near as I can tell the mailman walks around drops stuff off at the doors. Anyway, at the zoo you could walk through the wallaby exhibit, pet goats, pigs, miniature horses, llamas, and chickens depending on which animals stand still. Otters, peacocks, monkeys, and a couple of other animals.

Ate at sam's club because they have big pizza for little money and we have 3 voracious children. High society stuff for us.

Back in the car for about 2 hours, ending up in Chicago. The previous post showed the giant windmills we passed. Must have been thousands of them dotting the farmland and the pictures don't accurately convey how weird it is to drive past them.

Ended in the Chicago outskirts at a Best Western - Chicagoland Countryside. Yay, the land that gave us Barack Obama. I'll have to show my heartfelt gratitude to every person I see (Sarcasm mode off). Went and found a pretty cool playground/park to kill an hour at night and played the best game of pretend baseball ever.

We'll have to post the video of Drew at the Louisville Slugger museum swinging against 90 MPH pitches. good grief, baseball appears to be his natural sport.

Tomorrow is another day. Wrigley tour, aquarium. Who knows what else.

Vacation day 2 - more steps than you can shake a stick at

And day 2 is now in the books as we all recline at Comfort Suites Jeffersonville for the night. What did we do today?

Mammoth Caves Natl Park, the new entrance tour. Kate was a little apprehensive at first with the potential for ceiling collapse, but she became comfortable with it about halfway through thanks to the tour guide. Drew really enjoyed the first half, especially the climbing and exploring. Halfway through, he got pretty cranky. Instead of being freaked out by the cave, turns out he was tired. He fell asleep for the last half. Same with Ben.

Hey Ben, if you are reading this in about 20 years, you need to remember your mom is tough as nails. She carried you, often while you slept, through the entire tour in some very tiny crevasses.

After that, back in the car and we drove off to Lincoln's birthplace which was pretty fun. Got to see his cabin, some stuff from his youth, etc. Good time. kate and Drew got to be junior rangers at each park. Good for Ben too, as he got to run around and burn off energy.

Kentucky was pretty much non stop rain and dripping, somewhat the same for the little slice of Indiana we have now seen. We went to the main city park in downtown Louisville for a bit, saw a steamboat, the gigantic Ohio river, and more thunderstorms that cut our time short.

And, in a Phelan family first, we ate dinner at McDonald's. There was sort of a dearth of places to choose from. Dad would be horrified at us not trying the local flavor. Turns out we are a lot more comfortable with known, cheap options.

Beginning of soccer season and day one of vacation

Two, two, two events in one. pics for this and other vacation related posts will probably follow in a couple of weeks.

First game of the soccer season for both Kate and Drew today. Kate scored twice after taking a little while to get into the swing of things. But, she tried hard, picked her spots well, and attacked.

Drew did well in his game. A little more hesitant than we had expected from his practices, but probably first game jitters. He is easily the youngest in the league. No goals, but played hard and had a couple of nice saves in goal.

And then directly on to vacation. We had an awesome time getting past the 85/285 interchange thanks to the entire exit being under construction. But, once we got going time flew quickly. We stopped at Cloudland Canyon state park and hiked to the bottom of two waterfalls. Quite fun. There was a wedding going on at a scenic overlook. Kate liked that idea. Drew said that he decided that we would marry Laura Scott and that looked like a good place. Guess Katie has been replaced at least momentarily. Drew said Laura is good to marry since she always is funny.

Kate may have a new favorite place to hang out, the base of the upper falls. I think she really liked hanging out there and just staring at it.

Ben was ballast. He slept in the car, but far less than he needed.

Back in the car for another 4 hours up to Mammoth Cave where we are spending the night. The kids were wired for sound at the hotel, mainly because they think hotels are cool. Sherri and I think they are unfortunately necessary germ holes.

All asleep now, good day. Spelunking tomorrow, then some other stuff.