If I did not like where I currently lived- and if Chicago did not have such cold, long and windy winters- I could live there. It is one of my favorite cities to visit because there is a ton to do, great food, nice people and just an all around fun place. I had to leave early Sunday morning for a work trip and even though it was mostly work- we did get to have some fun too.
After lunch on Sunday- my boss and I pretty much had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever we wanted so we decided to head out to Oak Park and see the Frank Lloyd Wright house and studio. We both thought we would just get a quick tour but we essentially got to see all of his house (that he designed when he was 21) and studio. We had a fabulous tour guide who got lots of laughs when she stated that Frank was, “long on ego and always short on cash.”
Oak Park has the largest collection of FLW homes anywhere in the world, so after our tour we then took a walking tour of the neighborhood to see more homes. I obviously forgot from my many art history classes that he designed over 500 structures and 25 of them are on a few streets in the Oak Park neighborhood. Most of them are private residences and some were even decked out for Halloween.
After walking all around Oak Park and getting our fill of architecture, we headed back downtown for more work.
Monday was packed with work events but we did get to enjoy a nice dinner sitting outside. Chicago was having unseasonable warm weather and that would lead to the fun weather on Tuesday.
The morning started with headlines like: Worst storm in seven decades. Lowest pressure storm ever to hit Illinois. Tropical storm force winds. 500 flighs delayed out of O’Hare Airport. Be careful- windows might blow out. Eight to 12 foot waves on Lake Michigan.
This picture is from my Blackberry.
Luckily, we were stuck in a conference all day and the windows did not get blown in.
The wind was still very strong on Wednesday and we had worries about getting out of town. When I arrived at the airport in the afternoon, I think all those people who had been on canceled flights on Tuesday were back in the security line.
Luck must have been on my side because my plane was only a few minutes late arriving and besides the super-bumpy-felt-like-the-plane-was-going-to-split-into-pieces-people-gasping-take-off- we arrived back in DC in record time (one hour twenty minute flight thanks to a strong tail wind).
Miss H was thrilled to see me this morning and I was happy to see she was back to feeling like her normal self. The screaming banshee has hopefully gone into hiding for a few months years. Also, Kerry feels much better so life in our household is getting back to normal.
Hope everyone has had a nice week!
all three of us 
Chicago is such a great city. I will always remember and appreciate the two years that I lived there. Glad you had a good trip and made it home safely!