Windy City weekend

I finished a training block this past week so it made it good time to take an extra day off of the bike and head to my brother's in Chicago for the weekend. His daughter turned one last week, so I wanted to go up to be a part of that and just to visit as well before the Chicago weather turns terrible.
The trip was like most of my trips up: tons of walking (which no serious cyclist would do, adding merit to my full chump status) and otherwise basically a food tour.

This trip's tour started with a Chicago dog. As you can assume, it was killer. We also went to a place I saw on a Food Network show called Heaven on 7, which is a Cajun joint. It was right up my alley due to it having 20 (I counted) different hot sauces on the table. Very good.
For pizza (you kinda have to eat pizza in Chicago) we went to Pequods pizza. My brother has raved about this place, but I had never been to it. I'd probably put it on the top of my best ever pizza list. It was superb.
We went for late breakfast/lunch at a vegetarian place called Handlebar, as in bicycle handlebar. I had an awesome egg dish (vegetarian, but they do have eggs and fish on the menu). Plus they play pretty killer music and tout their "bike-friendliness." Great place.
We met up w/ my buddy Raw-dog (Ronnie Semba) from B-town, but who now lives in the big city. He went to Pequods with us and we went to the bike shop where he works now. It was totally cool to see him in his new town/new element.


This is the view from the quarry park which is a short walk form my brother's place. On a nice clear day you get a nice city-scape view.

This is us at the big mirrored "bean" shaped thing in Millennium Park. I decided this is probably the most photographed object in America. Maybe the world.

Also in Millennium Park there's a fountain kind of thing that has water which runs down the ground and into cranks along the parameter, then is cycled back up (does that make sense? probably not). It was a mad house of kids running around, and baby Ramona got in on the action.
Overall this was a really good trip; one of the better. What I like about Evin and Lisa is they never seem to mind doing the "touristy" stuff wherever they live even though they're loc's. I think a lot of locals wouldn't want to do the stuff out-of-towners do, but they're always down for whatever.
So that's my travel blog. Other than that I have a "recovery" week this week which means no intervals, just riding and a little less intensity. The we ramp back up for another few weeks. Races are just a few weeks away now!!!