la to chicago

okay a flight really isn't worth talking about. except that, for us beginning this "music trip" - well, there was a band on the plane! not anyone hugely famous, but it was a band called Sweet. They are famous for one song people might know: Ballroom Blitz. if you know this song, it will now be stuck in your head. i can say with certainty that the one band member who sat near us was blitzed - he had quite an array of tiny bottles of whisky on his table.

we also snuck into O'Hare through some very bumpy clouds and landed and retrieved our luggage . . . and then, just as we got outside to find the rental car bus, the skies opened up, it started pouring rain, and we watched the most magnificent lightning storm! rylan had never seen a midwestern display of lightning and this was really incredible. because the terrain is so flat, the sky is huge and the lightning bolts race across the sky from one side to the other. and, yes, we were glad our plane touched down just before all this happened!

dinner was our one extravagance - we ate at Morton's steakhouse, right next to our hotel (the Hard Rock Hotel, in keeping with the music theme of the trip). we had salmon, steak, ahi tuna - but the very best thing was this giant round pouf of bread they bring to the table at first. I could only sample a bite, but richard and rylan ate the entire thing. it was soft and fluffy and hot, with onion bits sprinkled on top. the best thing ever!

today - friday - we walk, shop and take photos while it's sunny. saturday is supposed to rain so that will be an indoor day, with the Frank Lloyd Wright house and possibly a museum or two.