Alrighty. Here's a run-down of how the last 6 days have been:

Thursday: My parents arrived later than expected (around 11). They got a speeding ticket on the way and took a wrong turn somewhere. We unloaded their car and talked for a bit before heading to bed as they had been up since 4 that morning.

Friday: The plan was to get to the HD Powertrain Tour I linked to in the last post but that tour only goes from 9-1 PM, Mon-Fri. We are about 4 hours away from there and by the time we had gotten up, we weren't going to make it. We had breakfast at a local restaurant and hit the road. We stopped in Milwaukee to go to TJ Maxx. We didn't find anything good there so we went for supper at the Rock Bottom Brewery. That was some delicious food and I think my mom ordered the best pizza I had ever tasted. Highly recommended if you ever go to a city with one of those restaurants there. Back in the car and we were at the hotel in Rolling Meadows (Chicago suburb) by about 10:30. We went out to get some groceries for breakfast in the morning and my dad wanted to buy some beer. Turns out Rolling Meadows has an "alcohol curfew" which means you can't buy any alcohol after 11 PM within that suburb. We were in a self-checkout lane and an employee came over to tell us this and we thought he was joking. Why this is, I don't know but it seemed pretty stupid to me.

Saturday: We got to the train station fairly early and found that the train that was to pass by to pick us up was full. The next one wouldn't be by for another hour and there were no guarantees that it wouldn't be full either. So my dad and I decide that it's time for a roadtrip. We hit up a Best Buy and bought a DeLorme Earthmate GPS unit. It plugs into your laptop computer and gives you turn-by-turn directions to wherever you may want to go in North America. After about 30 minutes of trying to install it (3 CD's worth and the first install didn't work), we were on our way to downtown Chicago. I really thought it was going to be a nightmare but with the GPS, it went very smoothly. We stopped at Ed Debevic's for lunch. My mom, Teresa and I caught the end of the waiters dancing on the bar but they didn't do it again during the time we were there. My dad was out parking the car and missed out. After that, we trecked out to Navy Pier. They had a stained glass display on with hundred year old pieces and some newer stuff. It was neat to see but not really all that interesting to me and my mom but Teresa and my dad held up the show looking at it all. After going out to the tip of the pier and nearly getting blown away, we went and walked through the Navy Pier Winterfest. They had lots of kids activities as well as trees and santas displayed from different countries. After touring through that, we walked back downtown. We didn't have time to see the Sears Tower or the display at Marshall Field's/Macy's but we tried to find it and it turns out we were only about 2 blocks away from it when we turned around and went back to the car. We got back in the car and headed back to the hotel for a quick snack before going to the concert. As it was last year, it was very good. The first half of the concert was the same (a story along with music) but the second half was different. My mom was very happy with it and my dad seemed to like it as well.

Sunday: We slept in late and were up at 10 (checkout was at 11) so we ate quickly and packed up the car. Just outside of Chicago is Prime Outlets. We spent most of the day there. I bought some leather cleaner/protector for my jacket and Teresa bought a couple of shirts. My parents bought a lot more stuff but I can't even tell you what they got. After that, we headed into Milwaukee and stopped at Olive Garden for supper. My parents had never been there before and they seemed to enjoy their meal. As usual when I eat there, I ate way too much and almost needed to be wheeled out to the car (I'm sure this is why all their seats have casters on them). We stopped in at another Best Buy to see if they had the Chill Pads (pad with fans in it for laptops to sit on) on sale still that I saw in the flier. Turns out the flier was only good until Saturday but I got to play with their selection of DSLR cameras. I really like the Nikon D40. It's smaller than the Canons and has a bigger LCD. It's also cheaper so if anybody wants to buy me a swell Christmas gift, there you go. We got in a bit late but stayed up and had a few drinks (mint Bailey's is very good BTW).

Monday: We spent most of the day shopping locally and also found that Wal-Mart's wrath was felt by another local business. I was trying to get some pictures made from my memory stick from my camera. Wal-Mart's shitty machine wouldn't work and I didn't really want to give them my business anyway so we tried to find somewhere else to do it. Shopko had a bit of a gong show in their photography department and K-Mart didn't do 8x10's and their regular photo service was 3 days (I wanted to send some pictures back with my parents). We went to the one photo shop I know of in town and they had a notice up that they no longer sell equipment or film, nor do they develop photos. They only do portraits. I guess I'm going to have to buy a scanner and start using my film cameras again. Anyway, after wasting a couple hours doing that, we went out to a Scandinavian store in Norway that my parents really liked. We went to a fudge/candy store in the strip mall here and Teresa and my dad bought 3 pounds of fudge between them. We also ate our fair share of samples. We got some groceries that my mom couldn't get at home and hit up the liquor store where they ended up buying $100 worth of beer to take back with them ($100 may not sound like much but when 30 cans only costs $14, it's a lot). We took Pizza Hut pizza back to our apartment and spent the night there. My mom said Pizza Hut in the US is better than in Canada but I haven't eaten at a Canadian Pizza Hut in so long that I can't say for sure whether she's right.

Tuesday: We were up at 5. Today my parents had to go back. I wish they could've stayed longer. They've only been gone a few hours and I already miss them a lot. They said they're try and come back at Easter so hopefully that works out.

There's my update. I haven't uploaded the pictures my dad and I took yet so I don't have a link for that.