Day Three in Chicago

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 155 - September 2, 2017

We slept in and luxuriated in our room at the Blackstone Hotel until noon, which was checkout time! I went down to the Starbucks off the lobby and bought two cranberry scones and a tall vanilla latte for Patty and a mocha grande for me. We played computer, read Kindles and generally kicked back! It felt good to be off the boat, taking extravagantly long showers, sleeping in a real bed, and enjoying the view in a room 21 floors above Grant Park and Lake Michigan!

We retrieved our bikes from the hotel and pedaled back to the boat in time for a drink before the Pet Care Plus pet taxi delivered Baxter back to us at 1:30 p.m. He is a handsome dude when he is groomed! He'll be a lot more comfortable for the next few months without quite so much fur. He always looks about ten pounds lighter when he comes back from the groomer!

We headed off for The Second City Comedy Club about 2:00 p.m., where we had will-call tickets for the 4:00 p.m. "Best of" show. We stopped at the Hancock Tower intending to take a quick run up to 360 Chicago. Turns out there is no such thing as a "quick run" up. There was a long line, and we were a little bit dubious, but as we got further up the line we saw a sign that said the wait was two hours, and another hour to get back down! So back on our bikes, trying to figure out how to get to Second City on the sidewalks of the bigger surface streets downtown and then in the travel lanes through some very nice old residential neighborhoods! It was a little over three miles from the marina to Second City!

Hancock Tower with Chicago 360 we didn't get to see!

We got to Second City a little after 3:00 p.m. It was actually a good thing we got to Second City a little early. We got our tickets at the Will Call window, and were seated only a three rows back from the stage. It is a fairly small venue, and it was amazing to think of all the great comedy stars who got their start here. Notable alumni include Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi, John Belushi, John Candy, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Dratch, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Jeff Garlin, Ian Gomez, Bonnie Hunt, Richard Kind, Eugene Levy, Jane Lynch, Andrea Martin, Jack McBrayer, Tim Meadows, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Catherine O’Hara, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Joan Rivers, Amy Sedaris, Martin Short, George Wendt and Fred Willard, among many others. 

Pat at The Second City. Hat on backwards not to be cool but to keep it from blowing off while bike riding!

We enjoyed the show! The sketch comedy was good, but the improv was great! One improv went like this: There were six players. They had somebody from the audience seed a topic by shouting out a word, and then two players ran with it, creating a funny improv dialog, and then when they clapped their hands, the next two had to start their improv dialog with the last sentence from the previous two, and so on. These people have an incredible ability to think on their feet, and the result was mostly pretty funny!

It was about 6:00 p.m. when the show was over, and we decided to try a little different way back to the marina. We just worked our way down to Lake Michigan, and picked up the Chicago Lakefront Trail!  It sure seemed longer going back than it had been coming, but at least we were not dodging traffic. The Chicago Lakefront Trail is 18 miles long and runs from Lincoln Park in the north to Jackson Park in the south.  We passed a beach volleyball championship event that was being televised, but mostly it was ordinary Chicagoans, thousands of them, walking, jogging cycling or just hanging out. This is really a great municipal treasure in Chicago!

When we got back, we had our sundowners and a scrumptious dinner of chili dogs!  All of a sudden, there was a clap of thunder, and a torrential downpour started. We closed up all the cockpit canvas, turned on the cockpit light, and were scumpo in our folding chairs until it was time to go to bed!