AI4 Concert Recap - Part 1 (August 8, Chicago)

Part 1: the trip up

I left home around 9 am Monday, went to Sam’s Club for gas (still, ouch) & got to Gayl’s apt. at 9:30. We made great time & got to downtown Chicago in under 3 hours! Lunched & found the arena but the box office wasn’t open yet. So we headed toward American Girl-ville, or so we thought… Turns out Gayl’s computer had been down & she hadn’t been able to get specific directions or a map. Neither of us knew downtown well enough to wing it, but we tried, oh, we tried! ;-) And now we know Chicago much, much better, lol! After much ado, buying maps (that didn’t show the street we were looking for), turning around, surviving several one-way streets (I only turned the wrong way into one for about a block, and the cop right in front of us – eek! –apparently either didn’t notice or didn’t care), and starting to call her friend back in Indy, we found it! So we had just enough time to shop a bit, & were both good & didn’t spend any money! (I went to a clothing store & Borders.)

Then we headed back toward the arena & our dinner meet-up place. Found a decent enough parking lot and Gayl headed back over to see if she could buy a ticket… returning with a seat in the row in front of me and just 10 seats over!! Then for more coincidences, that purchase delayed our getting to the restaurant just enough that we literally arrived within 2 minutes of my other friend, with whom we cell-chatted as she parked and we all walked from different directions toward the place! Too funny. We had a nice meal and also talked to the waitress about the Clay concert her mom was dragging her to next week! “Somehow” she had found out we were Clay fans as well….

And speaking of that, this is out of chronological order - *gasp* - but Gerry & I were sitting right in front of, & got to meet, the girl Clay brought up on stage to sing with at last year’s Indiana State Fair!! Gerry also ‘ran into’ Bo’s grandma, which brings me back on topic, yay!

(to be continued...)