Friday travel to Chicago

We landed on time, got our bags, and headed to the shuttle kiosk.  We had just a little information about this GO shuttle, which was not really enhanced by the (I’ll be kind) unusual man behind the counter who was more annoyed by our presence than wanting business.  We got on a shuttle and made our way through Chicago to the Hilton (of which, we found out, there are 4 in Chicago).  We were in the bus with other marathoners and chatted a little about it.  Driving through Chicago on the shuttle seemed exactly the same to me as driving through NYC on the shuttle.  Long, boring, a little scary, and expensive.  We got dropped off at the Hilton and agreed how gross the drivers long (male) nails were. 

We made it into registration and got our keys for the room.  I think we picked up some apples there and headed over to the elevators.  This hotel had those elevators where some go to some floors and the others to other floors.  Not sure I really understand the need for this idea, but we found the right ones and made our way.  We walked right past the room the first time as they were numbered in a weird sequence.  Found the room; was pretty nice. 2 double beds, 2 bathrooms.  Perfect for the ladies.  Michelle went into the one bathroom and found a hair on the toilet.  We called the front desk hoping for maybe a suite upgrade but they just sent housekeeping to clean the bathroom.  We also got a roll away bed thinking that Beverly (who would be joining us that night) might want a bed of her own and between the 3 of us we could decide who would be where.  Then we headed to the Expo.  I kind of expected a more full expo – it was mostly the charities and all the sneaker vendors, and Gatorade.  We walked around, picked up a couple of things, but the highlight was meeting Scott Jurek in the Brooks area and getting our photo with him.  He was a very nice cutie-pie.  He’s a vegan ultrarunner in case you don’t know.  We then took the bus back to the hotel and unloaded the goods.  M & I then decided to go get some famous Chicago pizza and someone had recommended Lou Magnalti’s (which the whole time I thought they were calling it luminati’s – like illuminate or something…).  It was two blocks away – score for us since we were pretty tire and wanted to limit the walking.  The pizza was really good but really filling.  We also got a free dessert with a voucher from the hotel but we only ate about half of that between us.  We found a grocery store on the way back and got some water to stay hydrated in the room. 

Beverly was still out with her family when we got back at a comedy show and it was time to crash.  So we tried to stay awake and watch TV but both fell asleep before she came back.  We woke up when she arrived and discussed the sleeping arrangements – she said she was fine to try the rollaway so we nestled in for what needed to be a good night’s sleep.  I slept well, but M had a problem since the train was just a couple blocks away & it kept waking her up.  Beverly said the bed was not so great, too.