Go Cubs Go! - Chicago 2012 - Day 3

We started our Saturday by gearing up in our best Chicago Cubs apparel and heading north toward Wrigley field.  We met up with the Russell family (Russ was a friend of Mark's at Mississippi State) for a sweet reunion and some absolutely ridiculous breakfast at a local restaurant, Tweet. 

This was the neatest little restaurant -  old fashioned charm with an art deco feel, a focus on local organic ingredients and spending time enjoying fellowship over a great meal.  If you are anywhere near this restaurant please do yourself a favor and go!  The food was absolutely delicious (see my cinnamon sugar doused gluten free pumpkin pancakes with warm maple syrup below) and the whole vibe was so relaxed and welcoming.

After breakfast, we headed up to Wrigley Field to take in the unique gameday experience that is Cubs baseball.  The Cardinals were in town, so it was a rivalry charged crowd for sure!  Mark was so excited about taking Turner to Wrigley for this experience!

Mark found us great tickets right behind home plate and though the sun was blazing,we were shaded and comfortable for the whole game!  Though they had temps over 100 earlier in the week, we hardly got out of the 80s while we were there..  It was the perfect day for baseball at my favorite baseball environment in the world.

You can have Turner Field and all the other over-commercialized, loud music blaring, neon lights parks around the country - I'll take Wrigley over those every single time!  The old school scoreboard, original architecture, and the organist who plays songs old school before batters and between innings - it's baseball how it was meant to be.

At some point during the game and many reaches into my enormous bag, I snapped a quick picture to give you a glimpse into what we take when we travel.  I spent hours before this trip (mainly because of Turner's presence this time) making sure I had anything we needed in my bag.  Below from top left: a ziploc bag with extra changes of shirts, my iPad and maps, the video camera, an extra pair of yellow box flops for me, the pink bag filled with snacks, the clear zipper bag filled with sunscreen/bandaids/rubberbands/medicine/Tide pens, etc.  Wet wipes, bottles of water, and lots of small germ-x bottles were in the outside pockets.  It is madness for sure, and my shoulders may never recover fully.  But, I was happy to be prepared!

As you can see, we had a blast!

After any Cubs home win, the stadium fills with a song "Go Cubs Go" and thankfully for those of us who usually watch at home WGN usually hangs around with TV coverage long enough for us to sing along.  Turner learned the words long ago and had hoped to be able to sing the song live and in person.  When we found out the Cardinals were in town we weren't optimistic about those chances, but thankfully the Cubs pulled out a win and we got to sing!  If you want to see Turner's reaction to her first Cubs win fast forward the video below to the 2 minute mark.  It's pretty funny!
We walked all the way around Wrigley, and we passed by one of the station for the Chicago Fire Department.  The doors were up and the firemen were out and about, mingling with fans, etc.  We walked over to show Turner the fire engine and were invited in to see it up close!  Turner even got a slide down the fire pole!  

After the game, we boarded the most crowded bus on which I've ever been and started the long ride south toward the Lincoln Park Zoo.  The sweet grandpa next to us was a 63 year old man from Toronto, Canada and he made fast friends with Turner. They had some entertaining conversation for several miles (complete with her seeing his Cardinals shirt and holding her nose like he was stinky - which he thought was hilarious) until she fell asleep in my arms about 5 minutes from our next destination.

We were all completely exhausted at this point (this was the third of four straight days that Turner went nap free which is not normal for her daily routine) but pressed on to the sights, sounds, and smells of the Lincoln Park Zoo.  This is a beautiful zoo set right in downtown Chicago, and it's completely free!

I loved this view from the nature boardwalk!

We landed at a local restaurant called R. J. Grunts and again, found a jewel of a restaurant that had just the relaxed feel we needed after a long day.  They had an all-you-can-eat, build-your own, salad/soup bar which Turner absolutely devoured.  Mark and enjoyed some yummy burgers, and perhaps my favorite part of the experience was the throwback to the relaxed vibe of the 70's with top hits from the 70's piped overhead as you enjoyed the whole experience.  Definitely good food, definitely a fun place to stop if you are in that area!  And be sure to tell them you are a first time guest - they brought us the most delicious warm chocolate chip cookie covered in vanilla ice cream as a special thank you for stopping in!

We were so full, and the night was beautiful so we decided to walk back toward the downtown area as far as we wanted to go before boarding a bus.  We passed through some of the cutest, and most hip "night-life" 

areas of Chicago - Old Town was my favorite and is definitely somewhere I want to explore further when we visit again - and basically found ourselves walking along the lakefront toward downtown.  I think we calculated we walked almost 3 miles!  Turner fell asleep while we were walking (it was almost 10pm by this time) and the poor thing just slumped over in her stroller!  We let the bus take us our last leg of the way home and put this sleepy girl (and two sleepy parents) to bed!