Once Beaner and I finally left the friendly skies and touched the actual ground of Chicago, we somehow managed to maneuver the train system and streets to our hotel. Well, close, anyway. At the parking structure one address away from the hotel, we asked a local, “Where is Hotel Monaco?” “Right there – you just passed it,” he replied. And so became the trend of our weekend – going out of our way to find things that were usually right in front of us.
We rolled into the hotel to find YumYummy and her sister deep in the throws of Happy Hour, anxiously awaiting our arrival. We quickly took our bags to our rooms so that we could return to the lobby and have a drink, “It’s been at least 45 minutes since our last drink,” Beaner advised them.
As Happy Hour quickly came to an end, we decided to retreat to the room for a quick freshen up before hitting the streets of Chicago. We walked toward the elevator and wished (outloud) that we had been able to enjoy a few more glasses of wine. Sitting on the table across from the elevators were several empty glasses and, among them, two relatively full glasses – one red, one white. I grabbed the glasses and said, “I dare any of us to drink these.”
Just then the elevator doors opened and we entered them – eminent domain wine in hand. Two guys, at the hotel for a wedding (we learned this via their loud discussion), staggered into the elevator with us and, upon seeing the wine, expressed disappointment in missing happy hour. “That’s a shame. Here, have these,” I said and then handed them the wines from the table. They excitedly took the glasses of wine, imbibed, and exited to their floor. Beaner then shared some very important information with two other guests who had witnessed the wine exchange with the guys, “That wasn’t even our wine. We found it on the table.” “Hope they weren’t roofied,” YumYummy said. “Better them than us,” I replied. While they might be hitting the floor, we were hitting the streets for more. “Drinking and eating our way across America,” YumYummy said, “It’s what we do best.”