scott
This is Scott, my right-hand man.
8.01.2010
7.31.2010
7.27.2010
7.26.2010
the weekend
saturday was scheduled to be my gaby day. she and her stepmom planned to drive down from Milwaukee and meet me for a day of Chicago galavants. while waiting for them I went to the end of Fullerton by the waterfront and tried to find the green market - I couldn't seem to find it. and as someone who really digs the farmers market world, I was pretty disappointed.
this weekend was the "taste of Lincoln ave" street fair so I rolled over there, expecting to be well entertain if not
only for a little bit. $7! no way!
during all this I had learned from gaby that I had a bit if time before they would arrive. this meant I had enough time to go an al anon meeting on the other side of the neighborhood. the ride there was great and the people were even greater. there were 28 people there, I believe, and it was a relaxed group. we collectively made enough time for everyone to share if they wanted to. the woman who sat next to me was carrying a bike helmet so we inevitably chatted up until the meeting started. afterwards, we talked more about bike riding. I learned that she isn't consistent with her cycling so I advocated, naturally, and showed her my Chicago bike map. recognizing that I'm an awesome person she started to tell me about cool things to see and do before I leave the city.
when gaby and her stepmother, melody, finally arrived after a thousand hours stuck in traffic, i got them
out of their car and onto the lake shore drive pathway. gaby and I indulged our feet in some cool relief in lake Michigan and shortly after remarking that no one else was in the lake we were told by the lifeguard that the lake was off limits for the time being because the sewer lines had overflowed due to the rainstorm the night before. yuck!
we walked down and through armitage and stopped for dinner at twisted lizard: fajitas and mango margaritas!
i had them drop me off at Clark and Belmont and walked home on incredibly tired feet. I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to go back to the hostel right away or not but those feet were screaming. I also decided to not try to hit up the 1am free improv show at the second city because lululemon was offering a free yoga class at 10am.
Sunday morning came and went and so did my alarm. I slept until 11, though i do remember it going off at 9 i mostly remember my split second decision to forego the yoga class. I'm sort of disappointed about that now but, oh well!
i have been trying to catch the tour de France as much as possible. the ultimate win would be finding it on at a public establishment where I could watch it with people who care instead of obnoxious hostellians. i read that handlebar, a bike themed eating establishment, might be showing it. they weren't, but it was a cool place to sit and have a cup of coffee. given that it was the last stage, i continued my hunt. i asked the guys next to me for a recommendation and they said to try smallbar. I did, they weren't. but I'm glad I went to both those places because the process gave me a great tour of wicker park - it's like the mission in sf but even more gentrified. (!)
with little else to do, i tried to go to the goose island brewery. their ipa isn't amazing but its the only local one I've found. turns out they don't have a brewpub. I wish I had known that before I'd rode in several circles, including goose island itself, trying to find the place.
with a few more hours yet to kill until the hostel BBQ, I found a spot on the grass near the harbor with access
to an outlet. charged my phone and read the latest copy of Momentum magazine that's been getting torn up in my bag. in there I read about the neighborhood of Hyde Park here in Chcago. i rode down there with my mom on the phone, more or less [our call kept getting disconnected!], and saw some of what there was to see.
feeling officially wiped, I begrudgingly rode my sorry self back to the hostel with daydreams of hotdogs, relish, and warm buns.
you can imagine my frustration when I saw that the BBQ was still under its tarp. I peeled myself off of Scott and tried to figure out what was causing the delay in cooktime-awesome-free-food wonder. before I could make a fool of myself by inquiring to the staff, I saw the original advertisement: Friday and saturday evenings. not Saturday and Sunday evening! RAWR!
after a pathetic dinner consisting almost entirely of flax seed chips and beer and a cat nap, I took Scott back out. we were headed to Simons Tavern for a night of free music recommended to me by the nice woman I met at that wonderful al anon meeting the day before.
the bar was one of those rectangular establishments which is fine except for when the place is packed full of people. a crowd in that shape makes it difficult and awkward to wander through much less to scope out a good spot to plant yrself. i landed at the end of the bar, fully on the opposite side of the room from the musicians. I had another depressing conversation with yet another bartender who didn't know the difference between an ipa and a pale ale.
i sat and read up on the tour. this is my first year somewhat following the progress of the riders. I learned that while contador isn't exactly an exceptional time trialist, schleck is even less so. I can't decide which of those two annoys me more...
7.24.2010
7.23.2010
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