What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part 1

A month ago, I had no summer vacation plans. None. And that was bothering me quite a bit. That changed very quickly, however, and last week I ended up going to Chicago and then, after one day at home, to San Diego. It was a very good week. So prepare for a photo-palooza—broken into two parts because I don't want to overwhelm you, all three of my loyal readers.

Leslie and I decided we really wanted the Spartan Trifecta, so we signed up for the Super in Illinois. Then Karmel decided she wanted to come too. And since we were there, we decided to stay an extra day and play in Chicago a bit. The fact that Sunday would be my birthday sealed the deal. Sweet!

The race was great—very muddy, with lots of going up and down hills, a swim, a few really crazy obstacles, and a lot of mud. And did I mention the mud? I think overall it was more challenging than the Beast, except that it wasn't as hot and we were at 400 feet above sea level. Hello, lots of oxygen! Here we are jumping over the fire at the end of the race. Did I mention it was muddy?

And here's Leslie and me with our Trifecta medals.

Yeah, we're pretty awesome. Then after a shower to get rid of at least some of the mud, we were off to Chicago to play. That night we went to Navy Pier and decided to take a cruise on Lake Michigan and watch the fireworks from the boat. Good choice. The skyline is beautiful at night, and the fireworks against that skyline were spectacular.

Then we went back to the hotel and, since it was past midnight and therefore my birthday, I got sung to and I got a present. :-) After that, we went to bed and slept for a long time. OK, not that long, but we did stay in bed until about 10:00, which was just lovely. So what did we do on my birthday? Well, we were tourists, of course! We went to the Sears Tower and admired the view (it was a gorgeous day), got dizzy looking down at the street, and took pictures of ourselves on the ledge 103 stories in the air.

Then we had some Chicago deep dish pizza. Holy yumminess, Batman!

Then we went on a river cruise and saw all the cool architecture and went to Millennium Park, which has one of the most fascinating sculptures I've ever seen in real life, officially called Cloud Gate but everyone knows it as the Bean because, well, it looks like a bean. We spent a while there trying to get really great pictures of ourselves. See, here we are pondering:

After lots of attempts, I think this is my favorite:

We also got our feet wet and splashed around a little in a nearby fountain, and since a vacation post from me wouldn't be complete without a feet picture, here you go.

Ignore the horrible pedicure. It'll get better before the next post. After that fun, we decided to get some henna tattoos, so off we went to Little India. I think they turned out beautiful.

After some dessert (because you have to have cake on your birthday), we went to bed only to wake up way too early to catch a flight back home. All in all, it was a crazy few days, with the Spartan and a whirlwind tour through Chicago—a city I decided I really like and would love to visit again—and a fabulous way to spend a birthday weekend, crossing a few items of my bucket list in the process. Hooray for semi-spontaneous long weekend trips!