had set the alarm for 9am so that I wouldn't miss the free breakfast (I love both free and breakfast). was awoken by general hostel buzzing around 8am and couldn't go back to sleep due to my surging excitement for free breakfast. my mushy banana went well with the small and appropriate-serving-size blueberry muffin. and my salmon cream cheese leftover from Denver went on one side of my bagel so that left the other side to take on the provided pb&j. I drank about two and a half cups of coffee (that's a lot for me, but I was worried about the effects of my fairly early wake-up on my first day here) and proceeded to tinker on and wipe down my lovely steed. oh Scott, how I dote on thee.
stopped at Cycle Smithy, up the street and around the corner. learned on the way that google maps DOES lie sometimes. found that the Chicago bike map is both free and awesome. discussed bicycle crime rates in Chicago with friendly store staff and was told that my locking skewers are sufficient. this basically means I have more time to figure out how to get my cable here from San Francisco. "excuse me, hostel, may I receive packages here?" we'll see.
rode the lovely lakeshore parkway to downtown and tracked down the location of the al anon meeting I'd decided on. had a great time at this fairly small meeting. a few of the women were generous enough to give me their time afterwards to discuss must-sees.
on their recommendation, I went down to millennium park. circled around and sight-see'd. had lunch on the grass, two carrots and an apple, and headed back to the lakeshore parkway.
I had arbitrarily decided to ride it as far south as it goes, for as long as it feels fun and safe. I mostly decided this because I hadn't spent the time yet researching what all I'd like to do here. after I finished the 9 miles south (plus the 4 to get downtown in the first place) I perused the South Shore Cultural Center. I learned all about and the room filled with her awards, degrees, personal paintings, letters of recognition, and etc made my eyes well.
I'd taken a wrong turn on my way to the cultural center, actually, so you'd think I would have known better than to stick around that neighborhood even remotely. but I suppose I thought I'd travelled far enough north, once I'd readied go back after the cultural center, that I was in the clear. the neighborhood of has a big "X" on my
map now - I haven't ridden that fast, or determinedly, in a while.
settled on a different route to get back up north, by way of Roosevelt to the west and then turning northbound on Halston (?). but I knew I'd need to weave through some touristy spots and parking lots in order to eventually find Roosevelt so I was intrigued when I saw another road cyclist and I suspected he might be going the way I'd want to go. turns out, not only did he unknowingly lead me to where I wanted to be, but it was a smidge more complicated than I'd originally bargained for. thank you random cycling guy, who probably realized I was following and showed no signs of freaking out!
having decided that a beer and a salad was in order, I used the last few ounces of juice in my iPhone to track down a couple of breweries. I never did find any that were both appealing and open. wound my way to and through the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, where my hostel is located by the way, and searched until I found something that fit. the only thing about this place that doesn't fit is their unbelievable lack of IPAs. leeann's Kevin told me that the pacific northwest is the main place for hops in america, but that doesn't excuse this place from not carrying any IPAs at all, whatsoever! frankly, the most shocking part was that my waitress didn't even know what "IPA" was. le sigh. I enjoyed my gigantic Cobb salad and my fat tire while watching some sort of low-to-water-level ropes course style airplane competition - it was way more
fun than the seven other screens showing baseball (::eye roll::).
with a full belly, I deemed it safe to venture to the grocery store. from
the picture I think I've well documented that I was wrong in that assumption. the best park though was riding home with zero help from my map.
the worst part was that a mere two hours after labeling and putting everything away, someone drank my lime sparkling water!
some guy (British?) was left alone for just a minute out on the back porch while I was talking to kalman and began to make himself my friend. he even made kalman his friend. very chatty, he was. he even continued to talk to me once I'd resumed my conversation with kalman. too funny!
there are no washcloths here. so when offered an additional towel instead I thought it'd all work out fine to use the thin towel as an oversized washcloth. Nope. quite complicated, really. and a big waste of soap. le sigh.
holy hell, it's a quarter after 2am. there's so many cool things to do that I've learned about in just the last 14 hours, I have to sleep in order to do them!
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