Today is Lisa's final full day in Chicago. She's still very tired and very much wanting to be home. Today she double-checked the route from the hotel to Union Station (there's apparently a lot of road construction in the area). The people with the crying baby and the screaming kids appear to have left, so she was able to get some sleep ( Read more... )

There were no travel crises today with Team Kuma Bear (and Lisa) other than the neighboring hotel room included a baby that cried a lot, night and day, and another pair of rooms across the hall that seemed to contain several older children who spent the day running back and forth between the rooms yelling a lot. Fortunately, after Lisa came back ( Read more... )

Just before 06:00 my time, Chris Carson called me from his room in the hotel in Chicago (a few doors down from Lisa's room). He filled me in on his side of yesterday's madness. He'd not been able to get into the hotel internet either, and he told me that the hotel hoped to have that fixed today ( Read more... )

For our final full day in Chicago, we decided to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. It has been many years since we visited there, and we could get there easily by train.

( To the Trains )

After getting back to the hotel after a couple of hours of walking around downtown, we considered our options. Lisa suggested that we could finally have the meal that everyone kept saying we should get while in Chicago: Giordano's Pizza.

( When in Chicago, Eat Pizza )

During Worldcon itself, we made breakfast in our hotel room from milk and cereal, coffee and hard-boiled eggs, and sometimes Bob's Red Mill oatmeal, from Bockwinkle's grocery nearby, plus some scrambled eggs and bacon several mornings from camp food we'd brought with us, thanks to us having a fridge, coffee maker, and hot-water pot in the room. So ( Read more... )

I had a pretty late night last night, and I'd hoped to get more sleep on Tuesday morning, but it was not to be.

( Chicon 8 Closing Ceremony )

On Friday (Christmas Eve), Lisa and I took full advantage of our 17th floor suite at the Crowne Plaza, checking out just before 2 PM and storing our luggage on a cart with the hotel. We then went out for a wander.

( Looking Around Chicago )

With our train to Chicago not scheduled to depart Detroit until 3 PM, we had a late check-out, and didn't have to rush. In fact, we even had a chance to collect the only station on the People Mover that we'd missed in our use of it throughout the week.

( Twice Around )

Our train to Detroit left Chicago right on the advertised, but unfortunately a combination of conflicting freight train movements, ship movements (open drawbridges), and track work caused extensive delays, and we didn't get to Detroit until around 11 PM. It also took a while for a taxi to arrive because we were the last people off the train and ( Read more... )