Big City Weekend, Part: Erin!

The bright lights and big city were too hard for my friend Erin to resist, all the way from Tulsa, so last weekend, she did the great honor of paying me a visit!

I love having friends and family come into town for the fact that I don't get into the city very often and when I have visitors in town, I have a great excuse to show off Chicago!

Of course, no good tour guide leaves off the film wonders of the North shore!

Here I am standing in front of THE Home Alone house. Yep, where MacCaulay Culkin rose to fame!

This is the house next door, where the creepy - turned lovable old neighbor guy lived.

Of course, I forced Erin to pose like the infamous shaving scene in front of the Home Alone house! What kind of friend am I if I didn't???

I am a little out of order with the pictures, but Friday night, Erin and I were able to go to the new Broadway musical version of Dirty Dancing. It was a good show, it's kind of new so they have some adjustments to make, but for the most part, it was lots of fun to go to a musical downtown!

Saturday, instead of showing Erin the Mormon temple (Erin is Mormon, too), I decided to show her the Baha'i temple just near the Lake in our little village. It really is an awesome feat of architecture!

Erin used to live in a suburb west of Chicago, but that was ages ago. We had fun being tourists downtown. Here, Erin is standing in front of one of the local stations' plaza studios. Random, I know.
Aww, Wrigley Field. As we were walking around later this same evening, the Cubs lost their 3rd and final game in their bid for a spot in the series.
The view from the Hancock Tower Signature Room is one of my favorite - even better than the Sears Tower, in my opinion. One great piece of advice for visitors is to skip the $15 charge to go to the top observation deck and instead, take the elevator to the Signature Room and have a lunch buffet, complete with sweeping views for $18! A much better bargain!

Navy Pier
Erin blocking the view of Navy Pier :)


Doesn't it look like I am showing her the time of her life?
Oh yeah, I was there, too!
Erin really wanted to take a Segway tour of Chicago. I'd seen these around the city before but never thought to take a tour until Erin came up with the idea, so Saturday, she and I took a morning stroll, on a Segway, through the "Museum Campus" area of Chicago.

The Segways are very fun and once you get the hang of it, they are very easy to maneuver...I think I even saw Erin pop a wheelie - but not on purpose!
Me and my stallion. Dig the helmet?
This was our tour guide. It was nice because he wasn't all "This is this and that is that, blah, blah, blah." He'd let us ride around and then stop and say "Over there is the Sears Tower, there is the Smurfit Stone Building and somewhere in that direction is some other cool building."

Erin with a cool building behind her. I think this was the other building our guide didn't give us the name for but at least we snapped a picture!

Erin and me riding high on our Lazy-Mobiles!
This really is the best way to see around the city harbor! If we had done all of this on foot, we would have been dead tired, but going on the Segways was Fabulous! Plus, we were totally pimpin' it with the fanny packs on the front!

At Soldier Field...where Da Bears play.
Sunday, we even scored $25 tickets to WICKED!

Crazy since I paid way more than that the week before to go with Matt but what was really fun was that the $25 tickets are RIGHT up front so it was awesome to see all of the costumes much closer!
Erin and I in front of the famous Cloud Gate, or as Quinton calls it, the Giant Jelly Bean!

The city view of the mirrored jelly bean.
Erin sure picked a winner here!
By now, it was like 65 degrees out, Saturday night, and Erin was cold. She barely stopped to pose for me to take this picture. A nice bum off to the side offered to take a picture of the both of us, but we could smell him 6 feet away and we decided that the picture was perfect with just Erin in it!!!
I MADE Erin take a picture with her idol's underwear outfit...Madonna. Doesn't Erin look thrilled?
Erin, thanks again for coming! It is so fun to break out of my routine and remember how much fun it is to go downtown and there is a whole bustling metropolis about 30 minutes away from me.

So who is coming to visit me next?