Since we elected to hang around Chicago over the weekend, we figured another touristy thing or two might be in order. So up to the Signiture Lounge we went.
Dana discovered that the view from the “powder room” was best of all.
Saturday is football day. On the way to join up with the Chicagoland Vols, Doug passed by 2122 North Clark Street.
This of course was the site where Al Capone’s boys massacred Bugs Moran’s boys on that bloody Valentine’s Day in 1929. Now it’s a park near a retirement home. It seems like all famous or important sites should have a plaque or something, but there’s nothing here. Just like there’s not a single thing at the orange monster sculpture to commemorate that day truant Ferris Bueller—aka The Sausage King of Chicago—passed by it with Cameron and Sloane just one step ahead of creepy Dean Rooney.
Anyway, Doug made it to the bar.
Everyone sang “Rocky Top.” Vols won. Since the latter is fairly unusual these days, somebody should put up a plaque.
Hey here’s a plaque!
As mentioned in our last Chicago-based post, the Columbia Yacht Club is next to our marina, with a repurposed ice-breaking ferry—the MV Abegweit—as a clubhouse. We surmised that the club likely would be far too high-society to allow the likes of us on board. Turns out the folks over there are pretty decent. Paul and Suzanne—a super-duper nice couple who race sailboats and just bought a Loop boat in preparation for their own adventure—are CYC members who read our post and invited us to tour the Abby, as she is known to those in the know. Of course we accepted the offer. The Abby is way cool, with awesome views.
And awesome mimosas to which Paul and Suzanne treated us. We hope they’ll let us know when they start Looping.
The most recent excitement on A Dock was when TowBoatUS dragged over a sinking sailboat and parked her next to Misty Pearl.
Divers patched her up temporarily and they caught most of the leaking diesel fuel, but the owners understandably were distraught. High wind apparently shredded their mooring lines and drove them into the rock wall just south of us. We gave them a bottle of wine and some chocolate but probably nothing could improve their spirits. We guess that’s why they call this The Boat-Killing City.
Assuming the gale subsides, we’ll be outta here tomorrow. We reached Lake Michigan on August 10, which seems like a month ago. Wait, tomorrow is September 10? It WAS a month ago? That means 30% of our Loop so far has involved Lake Michigan. No offense to you Lake Michigan, but although we’ve had some great times together we’re pretty sick of your big water and big-water problems.
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*Here’s a link to the John Prine classic.