We left Minnesota tired and hungover as usual, driving about 7 hours to get to Chicago. We can tell that we're getting closer to home because when we rolled into Chicago, it took us about 30 minutes to go through 4 miles of traffic. We got to the Cubs game by the third inning and Jimmy’s Yankee shirt was already starting trouble. Some girl in line yelled at him for wearing it and not surprisingly she happened to be from New Jersey. The stadium was pretty much filled to capacity, but the only issue was that the crowd had nearly more Philly fans than Cubs fans… Philly fans will find a way to ruin anything. We got seated in front of some diehard Indians fans on vacation, it was really interesting to see how optimistic fan bases of shitty teams can be. The way they were talking, you’d think they’d won the World Series already. Naturally, the Cubs had a 2-0 lead until the 8th inning and then blew the game, sending the Philly fans into their usual asshole selves for the rest of the evening so we knew we needed to get out of the area fast.
Jimmy had another buddy from his online gaming adventures, so we met up with his friend Danny in Posen, IL which is pretty much like the Newark of the Chicago area. We went to a local Irish pub for a few beers to shoot the shit until they turned the lights on and we had to call it a night. Chicago will need to be explored further on Roadtrip 2.0 this winter because one Tuesday night was hardly enough time.
It was at the Cafeteria that Franco introduced us to one of his favorite shots the “Water Moccasin” (Crown Royal, Peach Schanpps, Pineapple). So after a round of drinks we made our way to the bar Franco currently works at - Stella’s Fish Café. It was an awesome bar we went up to the patio on the roof and chilled out until they forced everyone downstairs to one of the many bars downstairs. The “Water Moccasin” shots kept coming and we kept drinking em because Jersey can party with the best of em. We were in rare form but we were still standing. We helped clean up and close up the bar and it was back to Franco’s house for some pizza and cookies. Of course we had a sober driver take us home because safety is always number one. Our sober driver was actually driving stick for the first time and he nailed it. Either I’m a shitty driver or Dennis is a shitty teacher, you decide.
After rafting we decided to drive a few more hours to Nick’s lake houses up in Northern Minnesota (Franco’s roommate who would fit in perfectly down the Jersey shore). The party continued as you saw in the video blog with Dennis and the other Minnesotians who were cooking in the backyard. We had some food and drinks and hung out by the fire, it was a pretty chill night. We woke up the next morning and grabbed breakfast at some dinner in the middle of nowhere and we did some antique shopping since it was right next door to the diner. We eventually made it back to the house and just chilled out by the community pool and BBQ’d some burgers and brats. Then we rested up and got ready to continue our cross country casino tour at Mystic Casino.
