Road Trip- Day Six Final Day

We woke up later than we wanted to on Sunday, August 18th but it turned out it didn't make a difference. We got ready quickly, ate some quick breakfast at the hotel and headed another almost 30 miles southeast to Brooklyn, MI where we would spend the entire afternoon at Michigan International Speedway for a NASCAR race.

Here's the back story on our history with NASCAR.  There really isn't one.  I used to watch NASCAR with my dad when I was younger but that didn't last more than a year or two and that was a really long time ago. M has never liked NASCAR.  That is, until this year.  M's coworker had a fantasy NASCAR league and we both joined just for fun.  We didn't know anything about the sport when we started.  Since the debut of the season last February at Daytona, we've watched every single race since.  It's a long season spanning from February to November so that's a lot of races.  I would definitely say we enjoy watching it but I'm unsure if I'd watch if I wasn't in the league.  I guess that doesn't matter since I plan on signing up for the league again next year. :)

When we planned this trip, I thought, hey, I wonder where the race will be that weekend?  Turns out it was about 2 hours from where we were going to be.  Kinda NASCAR fate if you ask me.  We ended up manipulating our trip by adding on a day and heading further east than we had planned to accommodate seeing the race. I didn't know this at the time but the race is held in an area of Michigan called the Irish Hills. We didn't get to experience the area except for the race but the surroundings look beautiful.

We got to the race with very minimal issues with parking.  I didn't think that would happen since the speedway holds 85,000 people.  We parked in our spot and we tried very hard to remember where we were parked in a sea of cars.  I don't have the yellow car anymore which was easy to spot so I actually have to remember where I park.  We saw quite a few Ontario, Canada license plates.  Canada is only about 1.5 hours away from where were at.

I don't own anything NASCAR so I went with the best I could do.  I wore a Miller Lite hat that I got from the fair years ago.  I've never worn it and I actually gave it to my dad as a hat when he had chemo but he never ended up losing any of his hair.  M bought a Michigan International Speedway hat to blend in a bit for the day. We saw probably every single stereotype when it comes to what you think of in terms of NASCAR fans.

They let you bring in our own food and beverage and M was going to drink a beer on the way to the entrance.  He had a bottle and realized he didn't have an opener so he went over to a group of people tailgating and asked if they had an opener, realizing that everyone he spotted had cans. One of the guys did have an opener for him but another one of the guys muddled under his breath with his head down, "Must be a pretty fancy beer if you need an opener for it."  Ah, one of the highlights of the day.

Our seats were pretty good.  With NASCAR, the higher up you are, the more expensive the seats are. We were in the center section that had 54 rows and we were in row 25.  Our seats were facing the pit and towards the end of it.

There are pre-race activities that take place such as an introduction of all the drivers, Richard Petty coming out on the stage, the drivers being driven around the track in the back of a truck like a parade to wave to the fans, the National Anthem, and the famous words, "Drivers, start your engines".  It used to be where they would say, "Gentlemen, start your engines" but with Danica Patrick as a driver, you can't say that anymore. It's always different when they say it with some people saying Drivers and others saying Lady and Gentlemen.  This year, the grand marshal's, actress Amy Smart and her husband from HGTV Carter Oosterhouse said, "Gentlemen and one fine lady, start your engines."  The pace car was driven by country music artist Luke Bryan.

A flyover after the anthem.

We were a little concerned about our ears and how loud it was going to be but we didn't see anyone else with protective ear gear so we didn't worry about it.  Once the race started, holy wow, it was loud.  I looked around and then saw at least half of the people with ear protection.  It was hard to talk to M during the race it was so loud and finally after about 50 laps, M went and got us earplugs.  They didn't do much but they helped.

We didn't have many cautions during the race.  A spin out here and there and someone hitting the wall, but not much in terms of real crashes.

Photos are really hard to get at the race.  Michigan International Speedway is currently the fastest track in NASCAR.  The cars on this track exceed 200 mph.

I got a lot of photos like this. 

And this one.

This one too.  The cars are just so fast you can't catch them.

My favorite driver, #56 Martin Truex, Jr.

Cute, little redneck couple

Oops

You could really hear the sounds in the pit of the air gun on the lug nuts

Oops

The view from the top of our section

Winner, Joey Logano during burnouts after his win

One of my favorites of the day; the shirtless cowboy.

Yee Haw!!!!

We left the race at 4:30 pm EST with the thought that it would take us 2 hours to get out of the traffic. The cops had the streets and traffic running so smoothly that we got out right away and was on our way home. We didn't have a hotel anywhere and we decided that we would drive as far as we could and find a place when we got tired.  We drove into Indiana and pretty much rode the state line until south of Chicago.  We were surprised when we got to a tollway in Indiana and it came to $8!  Just for riding along the state line. On our way, we passed Notre Dame, just north of South Bend.  At some point, we crossed back into Central Standard Time and even though we were still far from home, it feels good to be in your own time zone.  We hit Chicago around sunset and decided to keep going.  

Chicago traffic on a Sunday night

We arrived in Janesville, WI around 10 pm where we stopped at a truck stop for some food.  We headed out around 10:30 pm again and we both decided we wanted to get home tonight so we made that our challenge even though we were still 300 miles from home.  We pulled in our driveway at 3 am and went to bed.

Our trip spanned from August 13th to technically August 19th and we drove 1,400 miles.  I drove the entire trip. My car got awesome gas mileage.  From our house to Madison, we averaged almost 43 mpg.  On the way back, we averaged almost 42 mpg.  We got gas in Indiana and I would have made it home on that tank but I was pushing it so we stopped 35 miles away from home. I didn't really want to chance it at 2:30 am.  

So how about the state license plate game we played the entire time?  We didn't see any new states from the time we left Chicago on Friday until we were on our way home almost into Wisconsin on Sunday.  We were able to get two new states including Alaska on Sunday night.  We ended up with seeing 37 different state license plates and multiple Canadian provinces.  Pretty successful and fun at the same time. 

We had an incredibly awesome time and our trip sparks us to travel more and explore this beautiful country. 

1,400 miles 

Road Trip Day Three- Chicago Part II

We had a lot of things on the agenda for Thursday, August 15th when we woke up but didn't get to everything.

The first thing we did was take the car out for the first time we had been in Chicago and drive several miles north.  I wanted to find a gas station to get gas since we made it all the way to Chicago (with about another 30+ miles to spare) on one tank of gas.  We got gas and then went to see Wrigley Field, a couple of blocks away.

I have been to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs play on four separate occasions but that day we just wanted to park, take a look and a couple of pictures and head on our way.

As the time shows on the clock in the picture, it was 20 minutes to 11 am so we didn't really have time for breakfast. Fail.  Instead, we went a mile west on Addison to a cute little neighborhood liquor store where M wanted to go.  He bought up all the beers he wanted that we can't get in Minnesota and we headed to the other liquor store he researched before we left Minnesota.  On our way to the second liquor store, we by accident passed a place I researched a couple of nights earlier and wanted to eat at so we would do that after M scored big on hard to get beer.

This guy was painted on the wall at the liquor store.  He was a precursor to lunch.  

The place we went back to for lunch was Hot Doug's.  This is what it looks like on the outside, with a line along the side of the building at lunchtime on Thursday.

We waited in line for about 30 minutes before ordering.  I have never had a Chicago hot dog before so there was no doubt what I was going to order and we split a bag of fries.  The food was ready quickly and it was delicious and cheap. $2 for my dog, $3 for M's and with fries and couple of drinks, $9.25.  There was a camera crew there filming so if there is ever a documentary or news story about Hot Doug's, chances are we're in it. 

We went back to the hotel to drop off the car, recoup a little bit in the hotel room and got back out there on foot and walked to Millennium Park, about a mile from the hotel. 

Some views on our way:

Millennium Park has a few different sections but there was one section in particular that we wanted to see.

The main attraction for us?  Cloud Gate.  Yeah, I didn't know it by it's name either until a few weeks before our trip.  I always just called it "The Bean" like everyone else does.  I had never seen this before on my previous trips to Chicago since it's only been there since 2006.   It was an amazing sculpture but it would have been fun to have seen it on a sunny day as well. 

My reflection 

Underneath the bean.  It's all crazy when you look into the reflection and it almost makes you dizzy

We continued our walk accidentally through the Chicago Institute of Arts via a bridge before we could get out the front doors and continue walking to Grant Park where we saw Buckingham Fountain.  You might remember it from the beginning of the show, Married with Children.

We were about a mile and a half from our hotel so we started walking back about half way and then due to time constraints, got a taxi for the rest of the way.  We got back to our hotel with just enough time to change, freshen up and grab a taxi outside our hotel to bring us to Soldier Field for the Bears first home preseason game against the Chargers.

The taxi ride to the stadium was scary and I was sure we were going to get into an accident due to our crazy driver but we made it to the Soldier Field in one piece.  

We didn't have tickets so we looked for a scalper.  Scalping isn't legal in Illinois but we heard that if we go the side of the stadium of the Field Museum, we'll find some.  It was a long walk over there and just walking around Soldier Field was odd.  The building is so odd and so are the entrances and landscaping.  It's just a weird building.  

We found tickets on the other side of the building and paid the max of what we said we'd pay but we were in.

I just happened to have brought my Smokin' Jay shirt on the trip (as pajamas) so I wore that to the game.  I got some looks having that shirt on and I don't know if it was hatred towards me or confusion.  

Our seats were way up in the corner and I suppose you could say were in the nosebleed section.  We stayed until halftime and decided we had our experience at Soldier Field.  The Bears ended up winning the game. 

In the stadium, there is so much space, which to me, seems wasted.  When you're leaving out on the gates, it looked like there was a bunch of storage/garbage just piled up in one area.  It was just weird there.

I hate to say this but their drum line is better than the Vikings Skol Line

There was a super long line for taxis so we hoofed it back about half way before being able to find a taxi. They made you go out a certain way so we had no idea where we were walking but ended up back in Grant Park.

We had our driver drop us off at Giordano's blocks from our hotel.  We finally were going to get our chance to try Chicago-style pizza. 

We ordered a small stuffed pizza and we each at 1.25 pieces.  It was huge and so dense and so delicious. We have pretty good appetites and couldn't even barely finish a piece.  We ate more pizza the next day for breakfast than we did the night before.  We are talking about this pizza still.  We loved it so much and can't wait to try it again someday.  I had multiple people tell me to try Gino's East or Lou Malnati's pizza but we didn't, only Giordano's. No one told me about this place beforehand but I've talked to about six people since we came back about this place, all that had been to Giordano's before.  Yum! 

  

On way back walking to our hotel to end the night, we heard and saw a bunch of commotion and sirens so we decided to see what was going on.  There were so many fire trucks and police cars at the Dana Hotel and Spa but we didn't see what was going on.  We stood there 20-30 minutes and nothing happened and finally, they all just drove away.  A little non-drama drama to end our last night in Chicago.