Day 1 and 2 by: Blake Richter

This trip has started out to be a great one. We left as scheduled at 10:00 pm late last night and arrived earlier than planned this morning at around 7:30 am at the Hotel Indigo, and yes.....we were all exhausted.

We actually got to go into our hotel rooms earlier that we were supposed to this morning to freshen up before breakfast, which meant....NO BED HAIR!!!! We then had a nice breakfast buffet to get our energy pumping!

Then we headed out to the Science and Industry Museum and had a great time there! There was weather stuff, electricity stuff, airplane exhibits, and even a real German sub from WWII. After going throughout the museum, we got to go to the Omnimax theater to watch an IMAX movie "Hubble." It was about the Hubble space telescope. The screen was a dome surrounding us in front of us and above us. On the way back from the museum....THE BUS CAUGHT ON FIRE!!!!!!!! ...but don't worry, your children are fine. (except one) Just Kidding! We proceeded to get a new bus after we got back to the hotel.

Then we all got dressed up for the Chicago Symphony.

On the way there, the traffic was terrible. It took us 2 hours to get to "Ed Debevic's," the restaurant we ate at. The waiters and waitresses were very entertaining there. They did a dance to the "Y.M.C.A." and were very sarcastic and rude, just because that's the way they do it here in "Cheecagee." (that is "Chicago" for all of you guys out there without a sense of humor).

We quickly ate and headed for the Symphony and got there just in time for the start of the concert. The concert was amazing and inspirational. We saw probably one of the best pianists I've ever seen, no offense Mrs. Dopp! You are amazing too! The musicianship of the group was spectacular and exceeded my expectations. This trip is off to a great start! Let's see what else it will bring us!