Zimagal Monthly Magazine - Volume One, Issue Nine

Kate relates her tales of traveling to Chicago with a carload of girlfriends (well, just two but that was plenty,) and her year living in the Windy City.

Part 1 - On the Road

Well, we left New York drunk and early on the morning of...oh, wait, that was Captain Spaulding.

Actually, we left Baltimore late one evening in June. It all started when my friends Kathy and Andree decided to go to Chicago for a short vacation. I was unemployed at the time (I seem to have been unemployed a LOT in my life), but they convinced me to go along, mainly as a cheap source of transportation. We would take my car, Andree and I would drive (Kathy doesn’t drive - but that’s another story!), and they would pay for hotel, gas, and tolls in exchange for the use of my car. All I had to do was provide the car and my own meal money. I gave Andree a couple of stick-shift driving lessons prior to our departure, and one night after she and Kathy got home from work, we piled our stuff into the car and headed west.

It was about 8 PM when we hit the road. When we got to Frederick, we stopped for dinner, coffee, and our first hits of No-Doze. We knew we had an all-night drive ahead of us, and we needed to stay awake. Little did we know the effect the caffeine would have on our sleep-deprived bodies (not to mention depraved minds!) as we journeyed to the Windy City.

The trip was mostly uneventful through the nighttime hours. We observed Kate’s First Rule of Road-Tripping - "No Dylan in the Car!!" - as we chose the music to accompany us and keep us awake. We made a few pit stops along the way through Pennsylvania and Ohio. We discovered that Ohio is "The Dead Skunk State." No sooner would the noxious fumes of one dead skunk leave the air, than new fumes would appear. At times the smell was so strong a nasty green fog filled the car. (At least, I THINK that was from the skunks.) We counted 19 dead skunks through Ohio. Sometime during the night I turned the driving duties over to Andree and crawled into the back seat for a nap. Around 6 AM, I awoke, suffering from severe bladder irritation due to the overdose of caffeine. Thus began our adventure in the Indiana Turnpike rest stops.

Andree demonstrates the automatic tampon dispenser.

At the first Indiana stop, Kathy and I availed ourselves of the facilities. Andree apparently has a bladder the size of Vermont, and didn’t need to go, so she went off to get coffee. By this time we were all a little punchy from all the caffeine we had ingested. When Kathy and I got into the ladies’ room, we discovered that it was equipped with the latest in bathroom accoutrements: toilets that flush automatically when you stand up, water that turns on automatically when you put your hands under the faucet. Then we noticed a Tampax machine on the wall, and had the brilliant idea, "Wouldn’t it be great if there were an automatic tampon dispenser?"

It was simple yet brilliant concept: one would merely bend over in front of it, and the machine would do the rest (I think you get the idea). Well, in our sleep-deprived state, this seemed like the funniest thing either one of us had ever imagined, and we collapsed - literally - in spasms of laughter, to the point that we ended up on the floor, doubled-over, giggling uncontrollably. Apparently we were in the bathroom longer than we thought, because this is how Andree found us when she came looking to see what had happened to us. Needless to say, Andree was NOT amused...but Kathy and I were. :o)

Kathy gets excited by the automatic sink.

Part 2 - You Call These Accommodations?

Sharing close quarters with two of your best friends can be an iffy proposition. We stayed at Howard Johnson’s near O’Hare...the cheapest accommodations we could find (and it’s true...you get what you pay for - blech.) There were three of us, and only two double beds, so we decided that we would take turns each having a bed to ourselves, with the other two sharing the other bed. Well, this was fine, until the night I had to share with Andree. Some time during the night she decided to turn over in her sleep, and her trailing arm whacked me right across the right breast. When I yelped in pain, she raised her head slightly off her pillow, muttered, "Oh...sorry!" and immediately went back to sleep, leaving me injured, and completely un-mollified. Add this to our collective snoring, and the result was that NONE of us got a decent night’s sleep the entire time we were in Chicago.

Part 3 - The Parking King of Chicago, and Three Bushels of Tits

I had a friend in Chicago, Sam, who arranged Cubs tickets for us. Montreal was in town, and he got us tickets for each of the three games they were slated to play at Wrigley. Ah, Wrigley! What a place - a baseball cathedral. Sam was also supposed to take us all to lunch while we were in town, but didn’t make it back from a business trip in time - which is how we hooked up with Bert.

I had met Bert in Baltimore on one of Sam’s trips to town. The two of them had taken me out to dinner, and I had enjoyed Bert’s company, but I had no idea that Sam had arranged for Bert to stand in for him and take us out on the town. We were enjoying the game when Bert showed up and plopped himself down in the seat next to me. We chatted, and decided that after the game, Bert would take us to check out Harry Carey’s restaurant. We came out of the ballpark to discover that Bert had parked right across the street, in front of the Cubby Bear.

Three Stooges in front of Wrigley Field.

What is so startling about that is that Wrigleyville is FAMOUS for its lack of parking, and that Bert was driving some big old TANK of a car - a Caddy or a Lincoln or some other equally pretentious gas-guzzler! We marveled at Bert’s good parking fortune, piled in, and headed off to Harry Carey’s. Bert dropped us off at the entrance, then went up the block to find parking. Just as he U-turned and headed back in our direction, a place opened up right across the street. Seemed like this guy had a real talent for finding a parking spot.

After a sumptuous dinner at Harry’s, we decided we wanted to cruise the bar district. We headed down to Rush & Division - the Chicago equivalent of Fells Point or Georgetown. When we got there, Bert started circling the neighborhood looking for a parking space. He found one right down the block from Butch McGuire’s, again one big enough to park his boat, and off we went to cruise the bars. After swiping glasses from Butch’s, we hit a couple more spots, and then decided we wanted to go to the Hard Rock Café. Bert, bless his accommodating soul, drove us there, and - lo and behold! - found a parking space right in front of the place. At this point, we were SO impressed that we dubbed Bert "The Parking King of Chicago." What a guy! He even hung out at the Hard Rock, watching the Bulls win one of their many championships, while we went down the street to Blue Chicago and listened to Miss Shirley Jackson belt out some of the best blues I ever heard.

At the end of the night, Bert drove us back to the El stop near O’Hare to retrieve my car. As he hugged the three of us in one big embrace, he exclaimed, "Three bushels of tits!" - which is about how well endowed a bunch we three are! :o)

Part 4 - Wrigleyville and Beyond

Wrigleyville was a gas - we saw the Cubs take three from the Expos, got to see Dennis Martinez pitch, hung out at the Cubby Bear, and wandered around the area, in and out of strange shops. One of the strangest (and most fun!!) sold sex toys, condoms, etc. We found a condom for Andree’s boyfriend that had a ruler printed on it - which was hysterical, given that he had once taken a picture of himself holding a ruler up to his winkie! I remember walking forever to get somewhere, but I can’t remember what the place was now - (I think it was a blues club) - just the interminable walk from Wrigley Field.

One day we decided to brave the lines and go to the top of the Sears Tower. I think I’ve been to the top of every tallest building in every major city I’ve visited - New York, Boston, Dallas, Chicago - but the Sears Tower is the tallest of all, so it was sort of a requirement to go there. We also strolled through Marshall Field’s, a requirement for my two shopaholic friends.

Kate in front of the Sears Tower.

Navigating in a strange city with so much traffic was a tad intimidating at first. Not knowing my way around, I made a few wrong turns, and once ended up on the Kennedy Expressway because I was in the right lane at the wrong time. This resulted in a chorus of "Kate, don’t get on the highway!" warnings the rest of the trip. Backseat drivers - sheesh!

Part 5 - The Long Ride Home
Tuesday morning we packed up the car and headed home. We were all a little punchy from a lack of sleep and too much sightseeing, so I guess we were a tad silly in the car. We played a Queen tape, and did our best impression of Wayne and Garth during "Bohemian Rhapsody" - I gave myself a headache shaking my head to the beat. At one point, I glanced into the rear-view mirror to see hands and feet waving in the air in the back seat. When I asked Kathy what the HECK she was doing, she replied, giggling, "Dancing." Andree took it upon herself to provide roadside entertainment by flashing her bushel of tits at passing truckers. And the two of them did their best 5-year-old impressions, regaling me with "Mom, she’s looking at me," and, "Mom, she’s breathing on me," etc., etc., until I was forced to respond with, "Don’t MAKE me stop this car."

We decided to stop on the way home in Toledo, the home of the minor league Mud Hens. Amazingly, we found the ballpark with very little trouble, and were able to sneak inside and nose around. The previous game had been against the Rochester Red Wings - the Orioles’ Triple-A team - and I found a Red Wings roster taped to the dugout wall. Of course I swiped it as a souvenir. We took still MORE cheesy grin pics in front of the Mud Hen painted on the building, and headed home.

Andree's famous cheesy grin.

This trip left me feeling even closer to two of my dearest friends. It also left me with a love of Chicago that eventually led me to move there, a collection of cheesy-grin pics (mostly of Andree), and a collection of pics of myself looking like I was having the worst time of my life (some of which have been doctored by Kathy and are included with this article). The truth of the matter is that I had a GREAT time on this trip. I LOVE Chicago!!

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