If you follow me on Instagram, you know that we took a trip last week. We went with another couple (who is also expecting a baby soon) to Chicago as a joint babymoon. We chose Chicago because we all share a love for Hamilton: An American Musical, and we managed to find some tickets to see it there. We all knew that unless we saw it before the babies come, it would be a long time before we got another chance.
The drive up to Chicago was pretty uneventful (setting aside two spilled iced teas), and we arrived around dinner time on Wednesday night. It was raining, so rather than walk a few blocks to get some pizza from Gino’s East, we had it delivered. The delivery driver mixed up the address, and we ended up waiting over 2 hours for our pizza, but they made us fresh free pizzas when we called to ask about the delay and included free dessert, so we really didn’t mind the wait in the end!
We spent the day on Thursday walking around State Street, Millennium Park, and Michigan Avenue. It was cold but not so cold that we were miserable. We stopped in a bunch of stores, like Macy’s (look at that amazing ceiling up there!) and got lunch at a delicious burger place called Shake Shack. Their gluten free hamburger bun was perfect.
After lunch, we stopped in a store called Eataly that was like an Italian market interspersed with small authentic Italian restaurants. Steve had a lot of fun in there remembering his childhood in Italy (he grew up in an Air Force family). And of course we got some espresso & gelato.
We ate dinner that night at Trattoria No. 10. We don’t often get very fancy, so it was nice to dress up go out somewhere like that, and the food was amazing!
After dinner was the main event: Hamilton!
It was even better than any of us could have dreamed. The choreography, the staging, the lights – everything added so many little extra layers of meaning to the musical that you just don’t get when you only listen to the music.
It definitely helped that we all knew the songs by heart, because it allowed us to keep our eyes peeled for other details that added to the performance. We loved the Chicago cast, it was definitely not like seeing the B-Team. There were even a few understudies on stage that night, but you never would have known, they were so incredible.
After the high of finally seeing Hamilton, the next day was definitely the most difficult of the trip. We knew that weather could be a concern for driving back, but when we woke up on Friday morning it quickly became clear that traveling through Missouri would get us nowhere.
We finally decided to go the long way around through Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, and then up to Fayetteville. It was a 15 hour drive on paper, and we managed to get home right around 2 on Saturday morning, about 18 hours after we left Chicago. The men took turns driving and the pregnant women took turns napping.
Steve & I slept in the next day and ended up deciding to stay in Fayetteville for one more night to recuperate from the long drive. We saw some of Steve’s family on Saturday, which was an unexpected treat. Then we got the chance to spend Sunday morning at UBC, the church where I grew up, and where we met & got married. It was really nice to see so many old friends there, and we got to eat lunch with my parents and my brothers’ families. Then we finally drove home to Yukon.
It was the perfect trip. We got a lot of time to talk to our friends about ministry life, since they’ve been in it for much longer than we have, and to just generally catch up with them – and, of course, to debrief Hamilton for a few hours. There were a few bumps in the road, but we all took it in stride & ended up having a great adventure.
Now we’re ready for our next adventure when the twins come!
