Spring Break Road Trip!!!

Just in case Vegas was not enough to exhaust me, I came home for a few days and then we got back in a car and drove up to Chicago for the last half of the week, to go to the Big Ten Basketball Tournament to cheer on the Hoosiers!  It's something my dad and his high school friends have done for about 10 years now.  The wives were invited a few years in, and now the next generation (that's me) has joined the fun!

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Metro, which is on the west side near UIC.  It was great!  Reasonable price, in a great area, and really nice rooms!  The only downside to it was that the breakfast was super expensive!  BUT - never fear, we found two great places just across the street.  The first morning, we went to Dominick's which is a small grocery store.  It was pretty good food, low prices and Starbucks coffee, but nothing fancy.  The second day, we went across the other street to Mariano's Fresh Market where we had THE most delicious breakfast!!!  The first day we had this...

The next day - we had oatmeal that was so delicious, I ate it too fast to take a picture of it - OOPS!

Between games on Friday, we had a hell of a time finding a place to eat - there's not much around the United Center so everywhere we tried to go was PACKED!  We stopped by Madison Vine Wines to get out of the rain and bought a bottle of wine.  We sat down to drink the wine and the owner brought up this plate of cheese and crackers for free!  They were so nice there, and the wine was amazing!

 

On Saturday, my dad and his friends do their Fantasy Big Ten League "banquet".  We went to Roditys Greek restaurant for dinner, and one of our friends met us there to join the fun!  He showed up in a ridiculous green ruffle shirt (his St. Patty's Day garb) and that made J decide we needed an Irish Breakfast shot before dinner.  WELL, the Greeks didn't have any bacon, but they did have Gyro meat to substitute.  SO, we had a Greek Breakfast shot instead!!!  A shot of 1/2 Jameson & 1/2 Butterscotch Schnapps; a shot of orange juice and the Gyro meat to finish... AMAZING!!!

Beyond that, we did a lot of basketball watching - we saw at least part of 10 of the 11 games of the Big Ten Tournament, and I was quite a tweeting machine (#B1GTourney)... although we did leave early from a few games, and we skipped the championship because the Hoosiers weren't in it.

It was a great trip - I love hanging out with my parents and their friends... such great stories!!!  Now I'm back to work, but with only 7 weeks to go until summer break and only about 4 weeks until our next road trip adventure!!!!