Most of today was taken up by the conference. Something amazing happened there. I raised my hand in a room of 50 or so strangers, waited for a microphone, and asked a question of the panelists! And even more amazing, after they answered it, I asked a follow up question! It was a rare feat. I didn’t stop shaking until about 30 minutes had passed, but I did it and didn’t die. Wow!
Before the class though, I woke up a little early. I got a call from the New York co-worker who is also attending and we agreed to meet in the lobby at around 8:30 to walk over. I had time to head out and see the area a little bit first. I walked toward Millennium Park. It was rainy and cold and windy. Right before the park, I saw my first R2D2 mailbox! I photographed it. Once in the park, I tried to take the picture for the virtual cache called “Cloud Gate aka The Bean”. The effect isn’t quite so good when rain is dripping down the sides. I headed back to the hotel, got there just in time. As we walked to the conference, the rain turned to snow. That was better. The class was on the 37th floor of a building. It was really distracting at first to see the snow speeding by sideways behind the presenter, and then on the side, to see the snow hovering in place and rising. Luckily it didn’t last too long. Cool view from up there though.
After class, my co-worker and I went our separate ways until we were going to meet up for dinner. I, of course, took the opportunity to geocache some more. I had realized after the fact that that R2D2 mailbox was the R2D2 mailbox that I had printed out a cache page for. Unfortunately, waaaay too high a muggle quotient to even consider trying to figure out where the actual cache was. Maybe later. I did, however, get more pictures of me with the Bean, this time dry. I won’t be able to log it until I get home though, since I don’t have any way to get my pictures off my camera.
I then accomplished my main geocaching goal for this trip. I dropped off a Unite for Diabetes travel bug at the cache called “One End of Route 66″. It wasn’t easy. I knew exactly where it was going to be, but timing was everything. I pretended to drop my glove and made the grab while picking it up. It was nearly impossible to open the Altoids tin. I had to take the geocoin that was inside to make room for the bug. I’ll have to bring it back to Seattle and drop it off somewhere. The bug is supposed to go to Woodbury, Minnesota. It’s closer now. It started in Mexico, spent a few days in Seattle, and now it’s at the end of Route 66.
I came back to the hotel. Read up on a few things, logged my finds, caught up on the internet. For dinner, we ran out on the reservations we had and instead wandered around north of the river looking at our options. My co-worker is apparently hard to please, or possibly just in need of someone to say, “We should eat here.” It was interesting getting to see the stuff that was around though. We walked into the House of Blues restaurant. So much to look at. An hour long wait for food though. There were a lot of expensive steak places. I mean a lot. We really didn’t go that far, but I think we saw at least 5 places with $40+ steaks. We actually ended up at one. Sullivans. I had the small fillet mignon (only $27) and some horseradish mashed potatoes. They were both ridiculously good. Especially the mashed potatoes. Yum!
And now, I’m back at the hotel, again trying to remind myself I’m in central time. So far, I really like Chicago. I didn’t expect to, but it’s pretty cool. It’s easy to navigate, relatively clean, full of large public art, lots of interesting looking places, apparently good public transportation. Clearly no shortage of good food. I realize it’s been about 24 hours, but so far, so good. I’m glad I opted to stay the weekend.
I didn’t think they’d hold it right in front of the ticket booth. That part seemed kind of weird, but it did lead to the weirdest looks from the muggles nearby. It was a huge group. Can’t wait to hear the totals. There were well over 100 in attendance. So far there are 76 “attended” logs for individuals or groups. They’ve been coming in steadily all day. I think the organizer is going to post an official total based on the physical event logs soon. Those list number of people per log. A lot of the Groundspeak crew showed up as well.
