The Most Epic Week Of All Time 3

[C Doody]

Wednesday September 28th, 2011
I woke up on Wednesday morning, as with every trip, with a feeling of glee and excitement for the week ahead. I woke up at about 5 AM and talked to Joe online about some of the things TF and I were planning for the day, and some of the nervousness I was feeling about the flights. I think no matter how many times I've been on an airplane, that nervousness will always be there. An hour or so later I texted TF to see if he was awake yet and he texted me back to say he had woken up just then. I called him up like the last trip and we had a nice conversation on the phone for awhile before it was time for me to head to the airport.

The home airport experience was about the same as always and it was a nice cozy morning. The airport here is alot smaller than the other airports I usually have to go through, so it's alot more peaceful and nice. After saying goodbye to my Mom and Grandmother I went through security and headed on my first flight, which was fairly uneventful as I just listened to music on my PSP. Once I got to Boston is when the fear kicked in again, as last time I was in Boston I got lost and almost didn't make my flight in time. That was not the case this time and travel wise, it was actually a perfect day. Much like my last Boston to Chicago trip, I sat next to an Asian man. Unfortunately this guy wasn't as friendly and amusing as the other one, but he seemed nice. I also saw 30 Rock for the first time on the plane, which was a show I had always wanted to check out but just never did for whatever reason. Funny show.

After I got to Chicago I went out to the parking lot to find TF and saw him speeding away in his car, which I attempted to chase after. He called me after this and asked where I was, to which I responded out of breath that he just missed me. A couple of tries later, I finally see him coming up before he parks at the corner and I see him getting yelled at by a lady that worked there saying "YOU CAN'T PARK THERE". TF told her we'd only be a minute, but she would have none of it and I immediately had to throw my bag into the backseat and dive in the car as if I had just robbed a bank and it was my getaway car. Not even getting a chance to say hi to eachother yet, TF sped out of there before the lady got violent and as we drove out of the airport parking lot, we realized that the trunk was wide open. I quickly got out and closed it, got back in, and then we finally exchanged greetings. To make matters worse, the weather couldn't have been worse as it was really rainy and dreary. This really set the mood as we drove in traffic out of the O'Hare airport area for about an hour, seeing lots of depressing looking factories.

The trip improved alot when we decided to go get something to eat and stopped at a Sonic, which was my first time eating there. I had the bacon cheeseburger meal and TF had two hot dogs with some chili hash browns, it was delicious. After that we decided to go find the hotel and check in, looking forward to getting there as we had booked a suite which we had never done before, and we were looking forward to seeing how it was. After we arrived and checked in, we moved all of our stuff into the suite and to say it was massive would be an understatement. The room itself was so big you could have fit 3 of their normal motel rooms in there. Not to mention it had alot of neat things like a fireplace, a hot tub, a refridgerator, and a bunch of couches. Unfortunately we learned that the fireplace didn't work, the fridge froze our soda, and the internet didn't work. Still, we were planning on making the most of the evening.

We decided to go out for a drive and see what the Windy City had to offer for two young men with a car, and as soon as we got into the car, this loud hillbillyish banjo music started to play on the radio. TF's reaction to this music was hilarious. The first thing we ended up finding was this little Halloween shop nearby, where we went in and looked around at the costumes. Very neat place. After that, we drove around the city for a few hours and attempted to find this bowling alley we had found online. We were having some trouble finding it and I at that point didn't even care if we did, as I was having alot of fun just seeing the city, but I quickly learned that when TF sets his sights on a destination, he is a very detirmined and stubborn man. After we finally found the place, we went in and bowled for about an hour. Neither of us were particularly good (though we did have our moments of glory), but it was alot of fun and the atmosphere there was great. After bowling we drove out into the city to attempt to find something unique to eat, not really wanting to settle on McDonalds and Burger King like usual. About 40 McDonalds and 100 Subways later, we gave up and went to McDonalds.

This McDonalds was actually really nice though and nicknamed "The Rock N Roll McDonalds". Apparently it was one of the very first McDonalds to open up and it has this museum set up on the second floor, which unfortunately was closed up because we were at about midnight. As cozy as the place was, the food cost about double what McDonalds usually costs so I was not pleased. To add on to that, you also had to pay just to park at this McDonalds, but fortunately they offered a deal where if you spent 10 dollars on food, they'd give you an hour of free parking. After that we took a little walk around the area and decided to go back to the hotel. After changing into my pajamas and watching an episode of Seinfeld while TF messed with his computer, we decided to call it a night. A very fun, though hectic, first day.




Thursday September 29th, 2011
Thursday started about six hours later. As big and comfortable looking as the bed seemed, it really wasn't all that comfy and I had trouble sleeping in it. I told TF, who had slept on one of the couches the night before, that he could take a turn on the bed tonight and I'd take one of the couches. TF ended up sleeping a bit later than me and it was still raining, so it was a pretty boring and depressing morning in the hotel. After TF woke up, we got ready and decided to set out for a day of adventure. After getting stuck in traffic for awhile again, we decided to go find some place to eat and found a Five Guys, which was one of the highlights of Trip 1 for me. It took about an hour to find a parking space so we could eat there and I was all ready to give up and go find some place else, but TF once again stubbornly insisted that we stick to the plan. In this case, I'm very glad that he did because the food at Five Guys was AMAZING and totally lived up to my fond memories of the place. Before we went in to eat,TF told me to go into this little shop and ask for change for the meter. I went in and asked for change for a dollar, and this stern man looked annoyed and gave it to me. Once I got back out, TF told me that we needed a quarter more. I told him I wasn't about to go back in and ask the stern man for more money, so he ended up going in instead and got yelled at by the stern man, who informed him that he was trying to run a business.

After lunch, we decided to head over to the ice cream shop from Trip 1 that we had very fond memories of. At this point, the sun was starting to come out and it looked like the day was turning around...oh, how we were wrong. As soon as we got to the ice cream shop we found a place to park, then got out before realizing that TF locked the keys in the car. After attempting to get back in, TF said not to worry about it and we may as well go get some ice cream while we were there. We went into the ice cream shop and I had a milk shake while he had an ice cream. The milk shake was delicious and the atmosphere was just as amazing as the last time, with some of the friendliest people you'll ever encounter in your life. A huge contrast from the stern man who had yelled at us just an hour earlier. After leaving the ice cream shop, we went around to a few locksmith shops and attempted to get an estimate on how much it would cost to get the keys out of the car. We were told it could be up to about 160 dollars, which we found ridiculous, and TF just decided to break the window out of the car and get it replaced later instead.

After walking back to the car, TF attempted to kick the window in, which failed. He then grabbed a big rock and attempted to smash it through, which also failed. TF then threw the rock into the window, which failed. Just when we were thinking this car was bulletproof or something, a large Latin/Italian looking man across the street came over and asked if we needed some help before taking out a hammer and smashing the window to pieces. Needless to say, we had alot of people staring at us as they passed by and probably thought we were attempting to break into somebody's car. After cleaning up the glass the best we could, we got back into the car and started heading back towards the hotel. TF was REALLY stressed out about the whole thing and how his family would react to it, and I wasn't in the best of moods myself. Thankfully when he called his Mom and broke the news, she took it very well. The night ended up being pretty good, though it was very low key. We watched about five episodes of the Big Bang Theory in the hotel on TBS, took a trip to the laundry mat to wash TF's clothes, then headed back to the hotel and called it a night.




Friday September 30th, 2011
I woke up on Friday morning on the couch in the hotel, and felt surprisingly rested. Yes, I got a much better night of sleep on the hotel couch than I did on the bed. TF said he didn't find the bed all that comfortable either, but decided to take it again that night when I offered it to him, just because I guess he felt a bed is a bed. I had no issue with sleeping on that comfy couch a second night. We took the car in to a car wash to vacuum out what was left of the glass in the backseat, then decided to head into town once again and see what we could do for the day. Joe was scheduled to arrive at about 4:30 at Midway airport, so we decided to stick close to that area and ended up walking around a few places like Wal Mart just to kill some time. For lunch, we decided once again that we wanted to try something new and when we saw a big sign for Hooter's, we couldn't resist. At the very least, there was comedy involved in us eating at HOOTER'S. We both went in a little awkward, knowing it wouldn't really be all that bad, but still...it was Hooter's. I think I felt a little more comfortable when I noticed a family walking out that had apparently just had their little girl's birthday party inside. A little strange, but ok. After getting seated we met our waitress, Katie, an angel from above. She was very nice and very cute, so we both left her a very generous tip. Sorry if this offends anybody, but we ARE guys.

After leaving Hooter's and checking the area out a little more, we headed for Midway, where we proceeded to stand outside and capture a video of TF looking up into air at an airplane and shouting "DE PLANE! DEEEE PLANE!". We then went into Midway and parked before we headed in and waited for Joe to arrive. At first we decided to wait by the baggage claim like we usually do, but then we decided it might be more fun to go upstairs and watch him arrive. As soon as he did arrive, he proceeded to walk right past us without even noticing us, which I actually joked with TF might happen. We then followed him around for about three minutes to our amusement before he finally turned around and noticed us, then we rushed out into the parking lot to get out before our hour of parking was up. Another long ride through traffic later, we got to the hotel and Joe checked into the room right next to our's, which would have been awesome if we had stayed in the suite the whole weekend but unfortunately, we only had one night left.

We then headed back into the city with a plan to spend the whole night at Navy Pier, a definite highlight of Trip 2. On the way there, it started to rain once again and we got a spooky view of dark clouds over the Willis Tower, which made us think of some evil and dastardly plans of world domination going on up there. After we got to Navy Pier, we quickly realized that most of the rides and attractions were closed because of the weather, including the boat we were planning on going on. This was a major bummer, especially for TF, so we just headed over to the McDonalds to get something to eat and regroup. After eating, we started to feel a little better and decided to take a walk through the inside of Navy Pier to see what was down there. The next hour or so seemed like we were in an endless maze as we started out going from restaurants and shops, to empty rooms, to empty hallways, to places we had no idea what they even were, and at one point we walked into a random door and somehow ended up on the roof of the building. Then to make things even more confusing, we opened another door and ended up in what appeared to be Germany. There was this big German Oktoberfest thing going on with a German band playing polka songs, people dancing, people drinking beer and eating bratwurst, and old men in whacky hats. This was definitely something to see. After hanging out there for awhile, we wandered out into the night and were going to attempt to go on a more expensive boat ride, but unfortunately that boat was now closed also because of the strong wind. When they call Chicago The Windy City, they are DEFINITELY not kidding. The wind was so strong that night that it was practically throwing us around for about ten minutes as I struggled for air and tried to get back in to shelter. At one point, TF and I unwisely stood on top of some bleachers that were moving because of how strong the wind was, and looked down at Joe who appeared to be having a seisure of some kind. I'm guessing this may have played a part in us getting sick later that weekend.

After getting lost attempting to find our way to the parking lot where we parked the car at, we took a nice cozy drive through the city before we went back to the hotel and played PS2 for awhile. Joe and I have been regularly playing WWE games together since about 2005 because of the magic of online play, but this was our chance to get to go back and play some of the older games we never got to play together before. It was really fun. After that, Joe went back to his room and TF and I called it a night, with me once again sleeping on the comfy couch that I would miss greatly the next few days.





Saturday October 1st, 2011
Saturday morning, TF and I woke up and got ready before we checked out and moved our stuff into Joe's room, which was significantly smaller than the suite we had been in for the past three nights. None of us had any idea where we were going to sleep, but we decided to worry about that later and headed out for the first day of SHIMMER Wrestling. I was alot more well rested for this show than I was for either of the days on trip 2, so I enjoyed it alot. Seven or more hours of wrestling is a LONG time to be sitting down for so long and it can be easy to burn out at points, but they REALLY know how to put on a great wrestling show and make it worth it. If I were sitting there for seven hours watching WWE or TNA, I'd probably want to end my life before the time was over. I got to talk to Jessie McKay again, my favorite there who I was wearing a shirt of, and she said "F***ing awesome shirt" as I walked up and gave me a high five. This amused me. I also got to meet Madison Rayne from TNA, who used to be a regular iin SHIMMER but hadn't been around in quite awhile, so it was a surprise. After the show, we attempted to find the afterparty location which was changed not once but twice. Unfortunately the very cozy club from the first two trips went out of business, so they had to go somewhere else. The deal with the first place they changed it to I guess fell through, so last minute they ended up changing it to some other pizza place in town. TF was NOT happy about having to find this place after printing out directions for the other place.

Once we got there it was REALLY crowded and I was starting to get flashbacks of the first night of the afterparty in Trip 1 where I felt miserable and wanted to get out of there. I'm by no means a claustrophic man, but when a room is so full of people that you're struggling just to find a place to stand, it can make you feel quite tense. Thankfully, we ended up finding a back room where we sat down at a table and the night got alot cozier. Jessie McKay, Nicole Matthews, and a few other of our favorites from SHIMMER sat at a table behind us which was also fun. Joe wasn't hungry so TF and me decided to try the pizza and hoped that it would not have the same effect on us as the last afterparty pizza we tried, which thankfully it didn't. I thought the pizza was alright but honestly, it was far from the best I had ever had and TF liked it alot better than I did. The crust was kind of burned which I didn't like, and TF informed me that that was the way it was supposed to be. They also baked the cheese and other toppings into the pizza, and as a man who normally likes to take the cheese off, this made me sad. Still though, we had a really fun time there and a really fun day overall. After we left, we headed back to the hotel and figured out our sleeping situation. Joe and TF shared a bed once again because it was rather large, and at one point apparently TF in his sleep tried to cuddle up next to Joe, much to Joe's horror. As awkward as that was, I'm sure it was a better night of sleep for them than it was for me on the floor. TF brought some extra blankets which helped pad the floor, but even with them, it was still a very hard floor and I had a very hard time getting comfortable. It was then that I vowed that after this trip was over, I would never sleep on another floor again for as long as I live.




Sunday October 2nd, 2011
After waking up multiple times in the night, I got about maybe five hours total of sleep. I woke up at about 8 AM feeling sore and not all that rested, and the guys woke up not all that long after. Despite my crappy night of sleep, it was a fairly cozy morning until TF came running out of the bathroom yelling that the toilet was overflowing. Joe and I, with horror in our eyes, witnessed as water began flooding out of the bathroom and we scrambled to figure out what to do. In the face of tragedy, we all began to turn on eachother as we yelled for one of the others to go out to the lobby to tell them what was happening. TF, who later accused me of cowering because I didn't want to go out in my pajamas, took off running across the street so he wouldn't get in trouble. Joe then took one for the team and ran out to the lobby to tell them, while I stood and continued to watch the toilet overflow until three minutes or so later I looked out the window and saw Joe running across the hotel parking lot with a toilet plunger. I have to admit, I laughed insanely hard at this. After Joe ran back in, TF ran in behind him and attempted to plunge the toilet. Apparently when Joe told the person at the front desk what was happening, all they did was give him a plunger and told him we were on our own. We finally got the toilet to stop overflowing, but at that point, the damage was done and our room was already covered in water. To make matters worse, apparently the water had leaked down into the hotel handy man's room below us and a minute or so later the handy man, a large Hispanic man, ran up the stairs and looked at TF with his arms open before shouting "WHAT DID YOU DO, MAN?!?!". TF once again cowered and said he was just visiting before he ran out and the man came in and yelled at me and Joe for making his life miserable. Joe also comically turned on me and pointed at me, basically saying that I did it. The hispanic man looked at me with a look of hatred, told us not to flush the toilet again, and stormed out before Joe looked like he was going to throw up because he was already catching a cold, and the stress of this made him feel miserable.

After things calmed down, I headed out for some lunch at the Burger King to calm down myself and had a Whopper meal as "My Baby Takes The Morning Train" played. Very cozy moment. After lunch, I headed back to the hotel and we headed out for day two of SHIMMER. Thankfully at this point, Joe was starting to feel better. Since we could only afford one front row ticket, Joe and I took turns sitting up front and I let him have the first half today as I had the first half the day earlier. The day before I was really into the show and excited when I sat in the front row and was a little underwhelmed when I went from that to the second row, but I didn't mind sitting in the second row at all this day because TF and I had nearly the whole aisle to ourselves and alot of room. TF seemed tired as usual, but came alive for some matches and moments, especially ones involving Britani Knight who is apparently going to WWE soon. I was tired myself, but it didn't stop me from having a great time. At intermission, I went to get a picture of Nicole Matthews. I was only going to buy one, but she didn't have change and asked if I wanted to, so I just said why not and took two. The tapings ended up ending with an insanely awesome Cheerleader Melissa-Madison Eagles title match that went all over and through the crowd, sending both TF and Joe running for their lives at one point. Melissa ended up winning the title, which was something that was long awaited for SHIMMER fans and to say they went nuts when she won it would be an understatement. Joe, TF and myself all joined in on the celebration and went nuts along with everyone else, knowing that we were there to witness something special. It really tells you something about how bad mainstream wrestling is these days when you have giant arenas full of people just sitting quietly for most of the show, yet everyone in this 300 seat little building was on their feet and giving one of the loudest ovations I've ever heard. I really can't say enough good things about this, but to sum it up, it was a rare reminder of why I love wrestling so much.

After the show, we once again headed to the afterparty. When we first got there, it was a little less hectic than the night before. We ended up getting a few pictures with some people, including a hilarious one where Britani Knight asked TF if she could wear his captain's hat. Another of the wrestlers, Ariel, asked why he wore the captain's hat, which was also amusing. TF and me ended up eating again, I had a cheeseburger and fries which were pretty good. After that, there really wasn't much to do because it was filling up so much again, so we just decided to leave soon. TF went out to the car and attempted to take a nap, while Joe and me took one last walk through the place before we decided to leave. I started to walk towards the door before looking back at Joe and asked if he was coming, which he responded he was. I then went outside and waited angrily for about 10 minutes for him and felt as if he had ditched me, so I stormed up to the car and woke TF up to rant to him about this. Joe then came out and I yelled at him before he said he was just asking someone something and then got stuck inside. I accepted his apology, but not without giving him a little hassling for it first to teach him a lesson. After that, we went back to the hotel and while the others were anxious for bed, I was conflicted. I was sad that the next morning would be the end of the trip and really didn't want to go to bed, but at the same time, I was tired and knew that if I didn't sleep, the next day would be a long day. I ended up going to sleep on the floor again, trying to avoid the area where the bathroom water flooded.




Monday October 3rd, 2011
Monday morning was as always, depressing. We woke up at about 5 AM because I had an early flight, and Joe decided he wanted to hang around at the hotel and get a little extra sleep. I said my goodbyes to him and TF and I hit the road, actually having one last cozy car ride through the city as the sun began to rise. Unfortunately I couldn't fully enjoy this, as I was starting to catch the cold Joe had caught and was feeling slightly miserable. TF dropped me off at O'Hare and I bid him farewell before going in through security and getting ready for the long day of travel ahead of me. Honestly, I got home alot quicker than I usually do and it was a fairly painless day of travel, but the fact that I was sick and running on such little sleep made me feel quite miserable and I couldn't wait to get home. Not much to say about the plane rides, other than I sat next to a business man. Finally at about 3 I got home to the airport and my Mom and Sister picked me up. They wanted to go to Wal Mart, which I really didn't feel like, but I did need to get a few things for home so I went into Wal Mart like an undead zombie and spent the last of my trip money on some toilet paper and groceries. I then went home, briefly got online to catch up on some things, then proceeded to go sleep for about 12 hours in the first bed I had slept in in days.





All in all, it was a great trip. Alot of bad and crazy things happened, maybe more than ever before, but at least we can say it was memorable. We also had some really great memories out there and most of all, we just enjoyed getting the chance to hang out with eachother. Unfortunately, we have realized that we were overdoing it with these trips so we're going to start taking them less to give us a chance to save more money and be better prepared. It's sad that we won't get to go as often, but it really is for the best. Until Trip 4...

[DA HOME GUY]

fMy part of the trip always starts on Friday, however I am going to give a little back story before it. I don't think I told Chad or TF this since I didn't really want it to mess with the trip but on Wednesday when I went to go get my supplies, I unfortunately felt like I had an upset stomach after eating some pancakes. I had gotten this way in 2006 where I ended up getting really sick and the doctor said it was because of soda. However, I hadn't drank soda in about two weeks due to fearing this. So it wasn't soda and the only solutions I had were either stress of the trip or lack of sleep. Both of which I had since I really wanted to talk and say bye to Chad before he left. I also had a lot of stress of Sunday night which we had planned to stay up all night since Chad had to leave early. I toughed being out as best I could and my grandparents then took me back home where I napped and woke up feeling better. However, I feared that this would plague me through the trip and my grandmother was now worried about me going out there and feeling like this being so far away from home.

Thursday I felt a lot better though I still really had to use the bathroom at one point after we went out to finish what were doing on Wednesday. Not much of note on this day but Chad telling me that a part of the car was missing and we may not be able to do everything. I was worried at this point and thought they had got into some accident or lost some part of the car like the hood or something needed to be able to get around. Chad clarified later that it was the window which eased me a bit. I had planned to sleep early (and did on Wednesday night). However, I ended up not being able to sleep because my mind wouldn't turn off various thoughts of this trip. I have no idea when I did sleep but it had to be at, at least 3 AM.




Friday

I was then woken up at 8 AM to get ready which I did quickly. My flight wasn't until 10: 40 AM but I wanted to be there early to avoid rushing like last time. I drank some orange juice on the trip since given how I felt the last few days, I didn't want to chance my stomach getting upset. Going through security was different than last time since this airport had those scanners where you had to stand. Unknowing of this, I left my wallet in my pocket since I figured that never mattered before. A security guard there was mad at me for doing so and said "You should of left that in the container to be x-rayed son". This lead to him having to uncomfortably pat down my backside pockets of my pants and then some guy having to wipe my hands. I was frightened I was going to have to be FULLY searched but the other guy eased my fears and told me to put my hands down before trying to make small talk with me. I then got ready for my flight and headed to the gate. 10 minutes before the plane was about to board, the worst thing happened. That feeling to hit the bathroom hit me and I had been trying to fight it off because I thought I could make it, despite it being a four hour flight. So I headed to the bathroom and set my bag down which I was really nervous about. I actually had to wait beforehand too since some guy working there was stocking toilet paper and he awkwardly had to do it while I was about to go by peeking his hand in on the side and sliding in the toilet paper. I finished up and headed to wash my hands on the sink until my boarding pass slipped and went into the water which wet it. At this point, I was freaking out thinking that I had just screwed myself up with no time to spare. I quickly washed my hands and walked out before realizing they were boarding for my flight. I stood there waiting for when I needed to go up there, nervous about my boarding pass which already had faded with some of the lettering on there. I got to the lady and thankfully it scanned and I got through. I ended up asking if I could sit between some guy (who looked older and was taller in me but seemed to be in high school) if I could sit between him and his mom. He ended up moving to the middle seat and his mom seemed mad at me for it. I didn't expect him to move though I didn't mind an aisle seat, I just felt bad. Thankfully, they ended up talking a lot during the flight so I felt less bad and more like it was for the best. The plane trip itself was fine, I ended up listening to my PSP too like usual.

I landed down in Midway and started to head out of the airport. As I was going down the escalator, two people shared the same spot behind me. I took a glance back but didn't want to seem nosy. I only caught the smaller shirt and a quick glance so I thought it was an Asian man and his son, since the son looked Asian. Once I got to the bottom, I looked around for Chad and TF and started to walk, until I realized a presence behind me. Turn around and apparently Chad and TF had been following me the entire time. I laughed and could not complain about this, this beat twenty minutes of looking around for them and being told to just head to the hotel after it. They had told me about the window so I was anxious to get back to the car to see what was going on. It took us about an hour to get to where the hotel was (a sharp contrast to TF and I on Monday morning but this was Friday when everyone was probably getting out of work). We stopped to put some gas and I loaded up on water for the hotel room. Once we got to the hotel, I called my grandmother to let her know I was okay and that it was raining. Thankfully I had worn one sweater going and had my hooded sweater to wear too to combat the cold, rainy weather.

I was just about done in my room before I heard a knock and took one last check to make sure I had the key. I opened the door and TF stood there, as he and Chad were anxious to get going. I went into their room to be in shock of how huge it was, especially compared to mine. We were on our own isolated balcony up top and it was like they had the huge house while I had a small isolated home of my own. There was a hot tub, which apparently TF went into one of the nights. A fireplace, three couches, a large space to walk around and a bathroom. I was impressed by this room and it looked cozy but we had to go. We left the room and went to the car before we headed to the Navy Pier in the rainy weather. Chad already described the evil looking place we saw but it definitely looked like Lex Luthor or as they said, Donald Trump (who had a building there) were in charge of the town plotting world domination. We ended up getting confused as to how to get into the Navy Pier so it took us some time. Once we made our way in, we started to walk around and realized that the boats were apparently not going. Except for one which cost 30 dollars each. That meant that all three of us would be paying 90 dollars. I could tell that despite the rain and the wind, this boat ride meant a lot to TF so I offered to pay for all of them. I had originally planned to give both Chad and TF some money for their birthdays. Chad insisted he had his covered so I was willing to pay for TF and I. We went back and forth on this idea given the weather conditions and the cost. Of course, we had gotten to the window right as the 7: 15 PM boat ride left, leaving the 9: 15 boat ride. We decided to think about this and went to McDonalds to eat after exploring the mini mall a little. One humorous highlight to me included all of us walking into a Build A Bear workshop looking around and seeing the words "STUFF IT" on a sign which in all honesty, felt a little dirty to me.

We ate at McDonalds and it was a good meal before we started walking around, including seeing this stained glass place. After we knew the boat ride wasn't happening since we went back to the window and it was cancelled, we just walked through the stained glass place. I felt really bad for TF until we ended up having a blast just looking at all of this weird stained glass stuff. We kept going and ended up lost, in some isolated rooms that had no one else in them and some were dark. So we were walking around in the shadowy rooms, not even knowing where to go next. Once we finally made it outside, we saw this tent and nowhere else to go. So we went into this tent and heard music before seeing Oktoberfest going on. It was like some movie where you see three normal guys walk into this bizarro world of this weird German music and men in large red hats with feathers on top dancing and shaking hands near garbage cans. Women were in costumes and weirdly, Chad had told me to start filming before this so I filmed the entire thing. We were so perplexed after walking in there that we turned back and walked back in after, seeing everyone dancing to the chicken dance song being played by the band on stage. We then decided to walk around some more but Chad wanted to come back to this later.

We walked around lost some more which lead us to taking an elevator to the 7th floor. We were confused when we walked in there until TF opened one of the double doors and we saw the ROOF of the Navy Pier. We all walked out there before I got this look of HORROR thinking that we may have just locked ourselves up there without thinking about it. Thankfully the door opened and it was there that I noticed that there was a camera watching. I got worried that security was either laughing or on their way to get us. TF seemed to enjoy the view up there and it was a nice view. However we got out of there and headed back down before going back to Oktoberfest. This time we went through a different entrance where we got carded since it was the drinking area. We ended up going in after showing we were of age with wristbands and people continually asked us if we wanted beer and some type of snack that escaped my mind, may have been pretzels. We sat there for a while just taking in this environment before we got up and walked around. We stood there watching the band for a bit before we headed out. I believe before this was when we had walked around to this isolated part of the Pier with these HUGE waves going on due to the wind (making our decision not to take the boat a wise one). TF was fascinated by this and stood by it before he and Chad went on some bleachers. I'm not sure if they saw or not but I decided to imitate Rocky by heading up a pair of stairs and raising my arms in the air. It was after this that I tested out putting my arms in the air and letting the wind drag me, which it was literally so strong that it did. This was the part that Chad thought I had a seizure, I just thought I looked like Cornholio with my hood over my head and hands raised in the air.

One memory I just remembered that I think we keep overlooking is the flight simulation we went on after we found out the boat didn't work. Now I had been on simulations before so I went in expecting what I've been used to. No, this simulation would rock the small space ship like thing we were sitting in. I sat by myself on one side while Chad and TF sat on the other. Now when I say rock, I mean that Chad was literally falling on top of TF and squashing him into the corner. I was standing, hanging onto the railing for dear life because I was about to fall over. TF tried to get past Chad and ended up falling onto the aisle way and one wrong move would of lead to him flying back and hitting his head on the back of the thing. After this, this was when we realized that this alone made the night worth it.

There wasn't much that I remember after this except for us leaving, which was weird because we passed by a few boats that seemed to be for some party. A bunch of men and women in formal wear walked by us and we were tempted to try and sneak into the party. We decided not to but a hilarious moment happened where some song talking about being a sex machine or something like that was playing and this well dressed older looking man did a shimmy dance to it. We tried to go back to McDonalds but a lot of the Pier was closing now so we ended up trying to find our parking garage. We ended up taking an elevator and it took us to the second floor of the place we were already in. We heard Life Is A Highway by Rascal Flatts playing outside nearby which was awesome. Chad walked out there and a woman nearly went up to him since it was a private party but TF stopped him. I was kind of sad it was a private party cause it looked awesome with a buffet and everything. After this, we were lost for a good ten minutes, not knowing where our car was. I saw some door with an exit sign along the way and pointed to it as we walked through and low and behold, it was our parking garage. Oops at not seeing that sooner. We took a drive around town which was cozy but I will admit that since we didn't cover the window yet, it was slightly cold. This wasn't a problem at the time and it is only a myth but that might not have helped my getting sick too much especially given the windy pier moment earlier.

Once we got back, we played some video games in Chad's hotel room. Looking back and given what time we got back, it wasn't the smartest of moves but it's a memory to fondly look back on now. I'll never forget TF walking out of the bathroom while "LATINO HEAT" played on the video game. I also won't forget the amusement of seeing Chad's created wrestler, STUPID which made TF laugh hard at the name alone. Once we finished video gaming, I headed back to my hotel room and took a quick shower. After this, I got ready for bed, especially since nothing was on TV.


Saturday

I woke up at 9: 45 AM on Saturday. I got about six hours of sleep but felt well rested and ready to go. At about 10: 40 AM, I started to wonder where in the world the guys were since they had to check out at 11 AM and still hadn't even moved their stuff to my room. I had finished washing my hands on the sink before I heard a noise and looked out the peep hole. I saw TF walking from his room to mine so right before he knocked, I opened the door. TF got this look of shock which amused me. He and Chad started to move stuff over before I told Chad it was nearly 11 AM (about 5 minutes to spare). He got this surprised look and went down to check out. We finished moving stuff to the room and watched Big Bang Theory for a bit. Hilarious since Chad and TF seen this a ton during their trip so far. We decided to go after a while to the arena. However before this, I told Chad and TF to go ahead since the infamous have to go to the bathroom feeling came over me. I went and then went to the car, feeling a bit better. Once we were at the arena, I felt a little antsy and uncomfortable, since I rushed the bathroom to not take too long. Once we got in the door and sat down, I started to feel better. I got into the first show where I sat with TF behind Chad. However I felt bad because TF looked tired out from the night before and was looking through his phone. I began to feel guilty that TF had to come to this and had no way of leaving to take a nap or something then coming back in. It was here that I realized that us staying out so late the night before wasn't a good idea at all. I felt fine but I knew TF was heavily tired. TF was looking forward to intermission. I was into the show but I was also hungry so I was too. I remember I kept telling TF that we probably just had one more match left. Unfortunately for TF, it went over what it was supposed to and TF had to keep waiting until we finally got to intermission.

Intermission came and TF went to buy his Britani Knight shirt (since we didn't use the boat money, I wanted him to buy the shirt since he didn't use the money I had planned to give him). Plus, we would all match since Chad wore his Jessie shirt, I wore my Portia shirt and TF had his Britani shirt. It was too crowded so I had to go ahead without TF and I got myself some pizza. No real time for a drink since they were short on time so I went back towards my seat. I ended up seeing Portia there selling some pictures from Japan. I ended up getting one and talked to her briefly. I knew she had been tired out since she was just in Japan a few days earlier and before that had a busy schedule. I barely remember too much of what was said other than that she said my autograph was special since her hand had slipped and she made an unintentional line on it. Nicole Matthews also signed my picture and Portia brought it back. Unfortunately, I didn't get to wish her well or tell her I hoped she could get rest later since some guy came up and slightly shoved me out of the way to ask her something. Intermission isn't really the best time to talk and I didn't want to intrude so I ended up walking to my seat next to TF before Chad and I switched for the next taping.

I ended up getting really into the show being front row. I knew that I wanted to make the most of when I was front row and that combined with the show itself, got me excited and into it. Things were really rushed since they had to be out of there at a certain time and I could see one of the guys running it tell people to hurry up. The show ended and we ended up leaving to go to the after party. Thankfully, we had covered up the window with a garbage bag and some tape, so it wasn't nearly as cold. During intermission, they had announced that the Garv Inn had fell through and we would be going to their old place where they had them before the club. It took us a while of being lost but thankfully after seeing a sign with a chef on it, we got there. It was crowded up front and inside of the main dining room so we kept walking and got to a back room. This was more cozy and we found a table. A group of wrestlers, including Jessie, Nicole and a few others, sat behind Chad and TF, in my view. It was cozy and fun to hear some of their conversation since they looked to be having a great time. TF lead me to the bathroom for me to wash my hands and we ended up going to the employee bathroom by accident but no one said anything. When I got back, I ended up seeing that Portia's boyfriend had made the trip. I was wondering if Portia was there too but I didn't see her and considering the crowd, I doubt I would of made it to talk to her. At this point, I figured that I'd be able to talk to her tomorrow anyways and made it a small goal to be able to be around the front of the place early (since she leaves early) tomorrow night to talk to her since I didn't get to say much during intermission and this would be the last time for a while I'd get to say anything.

I can't remember too much else about the rest of the night other than TF and I seeing a hilarious replace of the chef on the sign, it was a statue. This party is usually real short so everyone began to leave and we did too. It was well enough we did since we had a long Sunday ahead of us. We began to discuss plans but figured we'd leave it to tomorrow night since it was tough to even think about. I took a shower but even when I had it on cool, it was poured out hot water and steamed the bathroom so I took it real fast. I kind of rushed shaving my face and it was in the bathroom that I felt the back of my throat feel slightly sore, the sign of a sore throat. I began to hate this feeling because I knew what was coming. The bathroom also had water on the floor since the tub retained water and it was taking forever to go down (it actually was stopped for some reason after working fine the night before). I then quickly laid down and we all started to go to sleep. I was anxious to sleep but Chad and TF seemingly fell asleep before I did. I kept getting distracted by various noises and sounds outside, along with a lot of thoughts in my head again. Finally I fell asleep but it wasn't long before we had to wake up the next day.


Sunday


Sunday morning was a lot different than Saturday. We had to go earlier so I believe we woke up at like 9 AM. I felt a bit more sick, especially with my stomach so I was taking as long as I could until I knew I had to get ready. I had planned to get ready at 10 AM. TF went to the bathroom while Chad and I were talking. I felt relaxed and like I just needed to take things slowly. Cue TF running out of the bathroom talking about the toilet overflowing. Water starts coming out of the bathroom onto the floor and we're all losing it, no idea what's going on. TF ends up telling one of us to use the phone. Neither Chad nor I have done this before and he ends up telling me that I'm closest to it since I was right next to it. I dial 0 and nothing happens. I do it again and it rings but no one picks up so at this point I'm stressed out. TF says that he needs to get out of there to avoid us getting in trouble for three people in a two person room and that one of us needs to run down there to the front office. I'm sitting on the bed, stressed and sick. Chad is right near the door and he tells me that it's my hotel room. At this point, I was ready to be angry since I had let him and TF stay in my hotel room for free and unlike the phone, he was the one closest to the door. I'm from California and not used to cold weather but had NO time to change and ended up having to run out there sick in a t-shirt and pajama pants. Remember when I mentioned we were on our own balcony? I had to run down a flight of stairs, run around the building and run to the front office before realizing no one is in there. I'm freaking out even more now before I see the lady that runs the breakfast room walking and I tell her what's going on. She doesn't seem to understand me and when she does, grabs a plunger and starts to walk off. After being stumped, I call out that it's not only my room to stay in but her room period that could be damaged by this. She says she'll tell the cleaning lady. I end up running back the long distance to the hotel room and go in. Chad is laughing at this point finding the whole thing hilarious, which it was looking back. At the time though, I was ready to puke because of running out there and already having an upset stomach. I had nowhere to puke because the water was filled with filthy toilet water and I had to try and contain myself from doing so. TF at this point was across the street, afraid that he was going to cause even more trouble.

Apparently the maintenance man or whoever he was that lives underneath my room yelled at him thinking he did it. The man then comes up to our room and starts yelling at us. I'm thinking he's the help but he's not even really dressed. I don't remember this part exactly since I was ready to throw up and stressed out of my mind. I guess here I started to say Chad did it but the reason for that was because I thought he was sent by the breakfast lady. Which, I had told her that my friend was using the toilet and it overflowed. I didn't want to seem like I was twisting my story and that we had purposely done this and TF had left, which left Chad in that unfortunate role. I apologize greatly for this but being in the situation and scared that they were thinking we were some rebellious juvenile rock star imitators causing trouble, my mind wasn't straight. I was worried that this would get back to my grandmother or I would be billed and that would be disastrous. I would never be allowed on another trip again and it would kill all the trust I built up to even go to Chicago. The man cleaned a bit and the toilet had stopped so he ended up leaving. He didn't even seem to care about us and the room, he just cared about his own roof leaking water. So that tipped me off slightly that he wasn't sent by the hotel. It also tipped me off when the alarm went off and at the EXACT same time, the phone rang so we ended up missing a call.

I needed time to calm down after this because I was on the edge of breaking down. I was sick, scared and dreading the rest of the day. One huge reason was not only because I had to throw up but given my past history the last few days, I felt that I was going to have to go to the bathroom and there was no place to do it. There was a burger king down the street but who wants to throw their guts out and use the bathroom at a Burger King where other people would be waiting to use the toilet? Chad went to go eat at Burger King while TF and I stood in the hotel room. I could tell TF felt horrible about it and I knew it wasn't his fault. I was honestly too sick to even be mad, I just tried to calm my stomach down. The deal was that the man who came up said that we shouldn't flush the toilet anymore. TF said I could throw up in the sink and we could clean it up but that...didn't really appeal to me either. I ended up going outside the room so TF could change (I had already changed by this point). There was a disfigured man standing out there who had occupied the suite that Chad and TF had along with some others. I felt horrible because I was sick to my stomach still and trying not to let him see it to give him the wrong idea. I didn't want him to think that seeing that made me feel that way.

To top it all off, a bee ended up trying to get on me. Anyone who knows me, knows that bees are among the things I fear most with spiders. I have never been stung by a bee and I don't know my real father, so I don't know if I'm allergic or not. I lightly knocked on the door and waited for TF to open it and thankfully he was finished. Chad ended up coming back just when we were going down to Burger King. TF still had to use the bathroom so he and I went there. Along the way, we passed some SHIMMER fans who recognized TF's Britani shirt and shouted "ENG-GER-LAND!". We ended up going into the bathroom and Wild Thing started to play which lightened the mood a little. A man came in and was waiting for a stall too. Eventually TF went in and then the man. I thought about waiting for it myself but I just figured I'd tough it out since that man was taking a while. He had offered me to go beforehand but...I'm not going with a man that I don't know right outside waiting. Especially if I have to GO. TF and I went back to the hotel and TF went up to get something while Chad and I got into the car. We ended up leaving the hotel, unsure of what we'd come back to. We ended up standing in line for a while, which was hugely bad. Chad had to go the bathroom BADLY and I still had to also. I was nowhere near as bad as Chad and I felt bad watching him having to wait and looking miserable.

The doors opened and Chad thankfully got to the bathroom while TF and I sat down. It was my turn to start the show this time and I actually felt this was one of the best shows of not only this trip but any of them. A lot of entertaining matches but unfortunately, TF was even more wiped out. I would look back and he'd be trying to be into it but he was hugely tired and I couldn't blame him. I however enjoyed the show and got hugely into it. Portia and Serena had a tough match which saw some weapons being used and some tough moments. Admittedly, I was a little concerned since I know how much pain they go through in a match, let alone one with weapons and a little more risky things than usual. Everything about that taping was awesome though and I remember fearing for my life when Saraya Knight (who had kissed a fan the previous day out of nowhere), was ripping on people and nearly jumping the rail to beat them down.

Intermission came and I ended up getting pizza and a soda this time. There was no Portia that I saw this time so I ended up just heading back to my seat with TF. It was nice at first having a lot of space until this drunken guy, his girlfriend and a couple of friends sat nearby. They proceeded to make sexual remarks (a big no no during these shows) that were unfunny. He also proceeded to make fart sounds during various moments and matches. Trip 2 featured spitting guy who besides that, I enjoyed sitting by because he was hugely into it. This was way worse to me and made me miserable. I love wrestling and I love SHIMMER, so to make me miserable during this show takes a lot. Add in that I hate littering and had no place to put my gum, ended up wrapping it in the wrapper only to get some of it on my batteries in my pocket later. Then being sick got to me and I started having a bad stuffy nose the entire time. I got more into it the second half for Portia's match though again I worried when she took a moonsault with a chair hitting her. Britani and Saraya Knight also had a heck of a match that woke TF up and had me forgetting the annoying people next to me. The main event was the Melissa and Madison match Chad mentioned. They ended up fighting in the bar where I had gotten my soda earlier and fought towards our way. TF and I had to move but of course, the drunk dude next to me wouldn't move, so I was stuck in the warpath. They were literally throwing chairs and fighting right in front of my while TF stood near Chad in the front row. At one point, a stack of chairs came flying down on my legs but thankfully it didn't really hurt. It was an awesome moment I will say and a throwback to trip 2 where the same thing happened. All kinds of chairs were all over the floor except for TF's, which had stood in tact somehow. The match was awesome and you could see a bunch of red marks on Madison's back. We found out later that Chad had purchased some pictures from Nicole Matthews who signed them and they were next to TF. That chair got used and Chad's pictures ended up with Madison's sweat all over them. A little remembrance of the night for Chad. When Melissa won, that was up there with one of the biggest crowd reactions I'd ever heard. To be fair, it's a lot easier to hear 250 in a small arena going nuts compared to 70,000 thousand in an open air stadium but it was still electric and one of my favorite wrestling moments ever. TF, who looked near exhaustion earlier and I were standing and counting along each near fall and went nuts when she won. Chad joined in and we were all chanting at the top of our lungs (at least I was with a sore throat, that should tell you something). While we were leaving, Britani Knight was standing there with a painful looking bump on her head. I told her that she had an amazing match and she shook my hand and thanked me.

After the show, we headed back to Michael Anthony's for Sunday's after party. It was a little more packed than it was the night before but we got a table. At first, Ariel was the only girl there and some fans had sat next to her to talk. Chad and TF were going to order so I told them that I didn't want to order and didn't want to be awkward not ordering. Along with my plan of being around to see people show up, I headed to the front despite it being crowded. One guy who I met on trip 2 at the hotel looked at me and said "Isn't this great". I concured since it's always a fun feeling being around wrestlers. Both TF and Chad joined me at points. TF ended up getting a picture with Britani, who once again was really nice and interactive. I remember saying something like "a picture with the Captain" and she smiled and said "The Captain!' before she took his hat and put it on for the picture. Chad ended up getting a picture with Nicole Matthews and then he got one with Jessie McKay. Both were nice although Nicole seemed a little busy. Jessie was more than happy to take a picture and was also nice. She's always busy at the after parties so even scoring a picture with her is a huge victory. We all went back to the table after this and I did do one last walk around and told Saraya she did an amazing job too, to which she thanked me and patted me on the shoulder. Chad and TF had ordered while I overheard someone ask Nicole something about Portia and I thought I heard her say that Portia was hurt and heading back to her hotel room. I wasn't sure if she meant for now or if Portia wasn't going to come at all. I could more than understand if she couldn't, I had been concerned for her after her last two matches.

I went back to the table where Chad insisted that I stick around a bit. I'm no fan of ketchup and it makes me feel sick. Not a good combination when I'm already sick but I did stay there. I felt a little sick but thankfully toughed it out. Ariel had ended up getting a guy to throw some paper to TF to get his attention. The guy ended up walking up and asking TF what the deal was with his captain's hat. After TF explained, the guy went back and told Ariel. Ariel then looked over and kept looking at me so I remarked "He's the Captain". She didn't hear me at first so I had to say it again and she remarked "That's cute". Not long after this, TF decided to head back to the due to how exhausted he was. Chad and I stood outside and watched some people talking, including Nicole getting interviewed. At this point, I wanted to ask her if Portia was coming to find out on my own. At least to tell her if she could pass it along that I hoped Portia felt better since I never got the chance to tell her that. Nicole ended up going back inside before I could. Chad and I decided to take one last walk in there and it ended up being cramped. We went through the side and were going to exit through the front. It was at this point that Chad and I got mixed on communication. I was standing by the non employee bathrooms and walking out. From his post, he thought I said that I was coming. I was trying to tell him that I'll be out there in a minute because Nicole was right in front of me and I wanted to ask. He was already ahead of me so I couldn't say too much and he seemed like he wanted out of there. I thought that he would head out to the car and go with TF to wait. I ended up waiting for what felt like forever to ask Nicole. I was already there, so I didn't want to just leave. She had talked to someone and took a picture, which hilariously Dave Prazak (the owner of SHIMMER) ruined so it had to be retaken after Prazak did an evil laugh. Finally, I asked Nicole who told me that Portia wasn't coming. I told her she did great this weekend and she thanked me before I saw that the front door was hugely packed. So I went back through the side that Chad and I went to. Before I got out, I passed by Ariel and told her that she had one of my favorite SHIMMER themes. She seemed amused by that and I told her to have a good night before she wished me the same I walked out. I went from Ariel's smile to back to the car to apologize to Chad and TF for taking longer than I imagined. Chad was angry at me due to our communication. He was joking after a while but I took it a little seriously given how I felt about the "It's your room" situation earlier and how my day had seemingly gone outside of the good moments. We patched things up and went back to the hotel. I was afraid of what we'd walk into but thankfully they cleaned up a bit with the floors. I didn't risk showering and Chad nearly caused TF and I to freak out when he accidentally forgot not to flush the toilet. Nothing happened and we all ended up trying to get some sleep. Chad at this point seemed more sick than I was so I felt bad for him. We got up at 5 in the morning to say goodbye and before I knew it, TF and Chad were off. I set the alarm for 8 AM since my flight was at 10: 05. I woke up at 8 and got ready quickly. It was about 8: 20 AM and I didn't want a repeat of trip 2 where I was late getting there. I had decided at 8: 30, I was calling a cab. 8: 25 had come up and I had wrote a note on a piece of paper that I would leave outside the door for TF. At about 8: 27, TF came and I had a breath of relief. We quickly hurried and I checked out. He stopped to put gas and we were off to the airport. This time security went smoothly and so did the flight. The only hard part was that I was sore all weekend, especially my back and neck. I unfortunately had to sit next to a woman who was rather large and it forced me to one side of the seat. The other woman next to me was small and left some room at least but it was hard for me to sit there for four hours. Once I got back, I ended up having an easy time coming home and passed out onto my bed. I was only able to sleep for a couple of hours so I uploaded my pictures afterward and then waited for RAW. RAW was alright but between being tired and witnessing a historic (to me) title change live, I felt unenthusiastic watching it but I did find some stuff funny. I slept not long after that, at about midnight. I ended up waking up at 9 AM before waking up again at 12 PM.

On the flight back home, I began to regret that since I had extra money, I didn't help out TF by giving it to him to fix his window. However I soon realized today that my family too needed that money since the car refuses to start now and we have to pay for that. Thankfully I did have enough money to help pay for that.

Overall, the good on this trip outweighed the bad. I enjoyed the trip and like every trip, we learned some things during it. I kind of wish we didn't have to wait a year to go back, especially since I learned we had missed karaoke among other things at the after party and I felt like the entire weekend went by so fast. I know it's for the best though, we need to save financially for it.

[Stormtracker TF]

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 - Day 1

I'll start this off by saying unlike the first two trips, my first day began with a full night's sleep under my belt. It was definitely a welcome change considering how long I knew the day ahead of me was going to be.

I woke up at about 7:45AM and immediately got a text from Chad, and we chatted for a bit on the phone as I packed my things into the trunk of my car and got ready to head out. This was another unique part of trip 3 considering I didn't even have a car for the first two, so that was sure to make things easier, or so I thought. I would later learn this was not the case (and decidedly so) but at the time I was just glad to have the car all to myself and the open road ahead of me and was really looking forward to adding something different to the week.

By 10:30AM, I was on the road. The drive from Detroit to Chicago, although long, was for the most part extremely peaceful and uneventful and probably my most effortless day of travel ever. The biggest issues I had getting to Chicago were a few brief but wild storms that drove traffic to a grinding hault, but being from Michigan I've driven through weather conditions much more treacherous than that, so it wasn't a big deal and I was in no real hurry.

After about a five hour drive through the wilderness, I made it into Chicago and quickly realized that during most of the day, this was no place to be driving if you wanted to make it somewhere in a hurry. It was a very good thing I left as early as I did considering how congested traffic was in the direction of O'Hare, where I was slowly making my way to pick up Chad. A drive that normally took 15 minutes took upwards of 1 1/2 hours, and was quite a stressful one indeed. It was a welcome site to find places from trip 2 that were very familiar to me, seeing as me and Chad stayed near O'Hare during our final two days in Chicago earlier in the year. I ended up waiting in the famed IHOP parking lot near where Chad made his ill-fated journey onto the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway in search of our hotel. I used this time to stretch my legs a bit and breathe some fresh air.

I had only been there for about 15 minutes when I got a call from Chad telling me he had arrived and was waiting outside at O'Hare, and we decided it was best for me to go pick him up instead taking the hotel shuttle from the airport to the hotel next door to where I was. This would turn out to be a very wise decision considering that this was about the time the crap really began to hit the fan. No sooner than I pulled out of the parking lot and back in the direction of the airport terminals, it began to literally pour rain. This did not aide me in my search for Chad, which took several tries. I kept accidentally driving into the bus lane, which infuriated an older black security guard lady, who successfully thwarted my attempts to get Chad into my car at least 3 times before I finally was able to slow down there just as Chad was running by. At this point the lady was getting REALLY tired of me disregarding her warnings that I was not allowed to stop there, so Chad practically had to JUMP into my still moving vehicle as I sped off in a scene not unlike that of an action movie.

Once I was driving away from the terminal, I remembered that I had opened the trunk of the car from the inside thinking Chad would want his luggage in there, but the situation that just unfolded forced Chad to just toss his luggage anywhere it could safely land in the car, so I had to pull over and have him close it before MY luggage was ruined by the downpour of rain. With that was resolved, we both had plenty of time to regain our composure as we sat pretty much still in the horribly congested traffic that I mentioned before. It actually was quite a depressing scene sitting there in a back road behind the airport near a bunch of cargo facilities with sad classical music playing on the radio. It goes without saying that we were both very happy to get out of that area and make our way to the Sonic Drive-In down the road from there, which was a new experience for Chad who had never been to a Sonic before. He was a little disappointed that the girls on roller-skates that I remembered from years ago weren't there to serve us, and instead we were served by a stern Hispanic man wearing a tie, but the atmosphere was great anyway and the food was just as good. We ate outside and thankfully by then, the weather had cleared up significantly so that made for a very pleasant first meal of the day for me.

From there it was off to our hotel, which we were pretty excited to see for the first time. We've stayed at this hotel several times already, but this time we weren't quite sure what to expect since all of the rooms that week were booked except for the suite which to us sounded pretty awesome. We both were shocked as we opened the door to find a massive room with a fireplace and a hot tub. The room also had a refrigerator and a microwave, and that was a pretty big deal to us since the other rooms there lack either of those. As it turns out the hot tub and fireplace didn't actually work, but it didn't really matter to us because we were still in awe of the sheer size of this room that looked more like a large apartment than a hotel room. We also were both amused and slightly confused at the presence of three separate couches that we couldn't imagine were ever actually used.

We unpacked and settled in for a bit, and from there we both decided it was time for a much anticipated night on the town in Chicago. On the way there we stopped at a Halloween costume shop and browsed for a minute, both of us laughing hard at the wacky outfits that were being sold in there. It was a pretty cool place, and although neither of us had money to spend on costumes and whatnot, we both were very tempted.

Upon leaving that little store, I discovered Downtown Chicago is surprisingly far away from our hotel. The drive there was at least extremely hilarious to the two of us since the jazz station I had been listening to earlier at some point during the day had turned into this ridiculous bluegrass station that played music I can only describe as something out of the Beverly Hillbillies. Once we got into the city, things didn't quite go as planned. I had originally planned to for us to go bowling at this place we discovered online that sounded awesome, but finding it was way easier said than done, so we ended up having an impromptu and to be honest, unintentional evening cruise all over town trying to find it. That alone turned out to be extremely cozy. We listened to this awesome 70's/80's station on the radio and had a great time just cruising the city and taking in the sights. In the end, albeit hours later, we DID eventually find that bowling alley and had a great time in there. Neither of us are pro bowlers by any means, but that didn't stop us from having a ton of fun.

The night was still fairly young, so we now set our sights on finding a midnight snack. Apparently there is a Dunkin' Donuts and a McDonald's on every street corner known to man in Chicago, which was funny but also pretty frustrating since we wanted to go somewhere a little less run-of-the-mill. We actually ended up settling on McDonald's, but only after we stumbled on the very famous Rock N Roll McDonald's in downtown Chicago, a very awesome but expensive place. We also found out parking there was $12 an hour, but were able to get free parking since we planned on ordering way more than $10 worth of food, and trust me, it was NOT hard to do that in there. I once read someone say something along the lines of "The words "cheap" and "downtown Chicago" are not two words that go together often." and this could not be any more true, but just being in there after midnight and seeing it so busy was really awesome and well worth the price tag. In fact, that was one of my favorite moments of any of the 3 trips so far. After we enjoyed our meal, we went for a little walk around the neighborhood before posing with the statues in front of the McDonald's and deciding we both needed sleep after such a long day, so back to the hotel we went. We relaxed a bit before turning in fairly early by our standards, and that ended our first day which started out very stressful but ended with a bang.

Thursday, September 29th, 2011 - Day 2

I woke up to a deary and rainy looking view outside our hotel, which lead me to believe it may be a lazy, easy going type of afternoon, but after venturing out into the city this quickly proved to be very untrue. We kind of stumbled onto a Five Guys, a place that Chad had told me about from the first trip that I was dying to try, so for me this was a must-visit place. It took a great deal of time to find a parking place, and you would think that things would get easier once we parked...but you would be wrong. I pulled in there and angrily found out that the parking meters, although digital, only accept quarters which I didn't have nearly enough of, so I told Chad to go get some quarters from the store we had parked next to. He did, and when he got back I discovered that the machine STOLE three quarters from me. Chad refused to go back into the store to exchange another dollar for quarters, not telling me that the man running this establishment was a huge jerk and basically told me off for asking him for change for a dollar, saying that he needed to run a business here. This caught me very off guard only angering me even further over the situation, and believe it or not things continued to go downhill. I looked down at my pocket and noticed that my iPod headphones were dangling lifelessly with no iPod at the end of them, horrifying me. I began to search the area frantically for my iPod to no avail and told Chad he should just go get something to eat while I wallow in my own sorrow and attempt to see if the iPod might've just gotten torn away from my headphones in the car. Chad however is a good man and promised not to leave me there on the streets of Chicago alone in my search for said iPod. I ended up finding it under one of the seats which was a HUGE relief, and then more than ever was I ready to enjoy a fine meal at a fast food place I had never been before. As I entered the building I quickly discovered it was more like a cozy little burger joint than a fast food place, which was a huge plus. I ordered a bacon burger with fries and enjoyed some of the best fast food I've eaten in my life, definitely worth the ordeal leading up to it. Chad definitely knew what he was talking about when he raved about how great this place was. I will definitely be going back there in the future.

From there we decided to hit up a place from trip 1 called Bobtail Ice Cream, a cozy little corner ice cream shop in this awesome friendly neighborhood. When we arrived there the sun had come out and the day couldn't have been nicer, and it seemed as though things were only going to be up from there. Yet again, this was not the case as I accidentally locked my keys in the car trying to get the parking meter to work. In one of the biggest "Oh, CRAP" moments of my life I begin to slowly come to terms with the fact that a potentially catastrophic disaster had taken place by my hand, but at the time there was nothing I could even do so I calmly decided we should go have some ice cream and relax before I even worried about what we would do. We took a very short walk to the ice cream shop and in there I asked the very friendly staff if they knew of a place in the area that could unlock the door to my car, and they told me of a locksmith just down the street that would probably do it for free. This eased my mind greatly, so I sat down and enjoyed my ice cream feeling like the day had most likely been saved. When we finished our ice cream we decided to make the walk down to that locksmith shop, where we were then informed that they couldn't help us out and directed us to another place. The news here was even more unfortunate, considering we did NOT have the $160 quoted to unlock my car. I flat out told the guy that there was no way I was paying that and was just going to break the window out.

To say we both felt defeated was an understatement, and I really commend Chad for not getting in my case about the extremely stupid mistake that lead to us having to make this decision that I REALLY didn't want to make...to bust open a window and unlock the door. It really at that point was the only option, and after several futile attempts to break the window with my foot, then my shoe, my fist, and even a large rock, some hilarious man from across the street came and offered to help and went to go get some tools. By now quite a few people were stopping and staring at this spectacle unfolding on the streets of Lincoln Park in Chicago. The guy returned with a large hammer and told everyone to stand back as he proceeded to SMASH the window sending glass flying everywhere imaginable. We briefly exchanged words as the man advised me where to take the car to repair the window, but it kinda went in one ear and out the other considering my mind was moving at about a thousand miles per hour. I thanked him one last time and jokingly commented on about how I couldn't believe I was thanking someone for breaking out my car window, but I was. Once he went back to whatever he was doing before and I was left to survey the damages, the reality of the situation really began to sink in. For one, I could NOT believe how much glass was actually in that window. There was literally no part of the car untouched by this mess, I cleaned up what little I could right there and had to leave since our meter was about to run out. We both decided that it'd be best to head back to the hotel and regroup, so we did.

That drive back to the hotel was about as depressing as you could imagine with us both sitting in the car with looks of sadness on our faces. We both couldn't help but laugh at the mess from time to time though, cause it looked like a scene out of some cheesy 80's road trip movie with us driving around in an old car missing a window with glass all over the place. In between those moments of amusement, the majority of my time was spent trying to figure out just how the heck I was going to explain this to my Mom without sounding like a huge idiot...and to be fair, that was kinda because I was an idiot to lock my keys in there in the first place, but still. Damage control was really not an option in this situation.

After we got back to the hotel, I decided to retire the car for the night so I went over to Walgreen's to buy some tape and trash bags to cover the window up before it rained again. The crazy wind that would be a mainstay for the rest of the trip did me no favors, but I eventually got it patched up enough that it would be very hard for anything to get inside the car. I went in and watched Big Bang Theory with Chad and decided to relax a little in the hot tub that didn't really work, but I felt the need to at least say I used it before we left the suite on Saturday. After putting it off as long as I could, I decided to break the news to my Mom and she took it very well which I was thankful for. With weight off my shoulders, I decided to take some of my clothes that were in the back seat of the car and now covered in glass to the laundry mat down the road. It was there that me and Chad had a long discussion about how ill-advised this entire trip was and how we really needed to save up more money before going the next time so that things like this, if they happened, would be a lot easier to deal with. Once my clothes dried we both walked back to the hotel to get some much needed rest after a long, long day.

Friday, September 30th, 2011 - Day 3

Waking up in the morning after all of that was hard considering I really just wanted to roll over and die, but we were determined to turn things around on Friday, and the first step in doing that was to clean up the huge mess inside of the car, so I took it to this car wash that had free vacuums and fixed things up nicely. Putting yesterday behind us, me and Chad decided to head over to the Midway area to explore and wait for Joe. On the way we found a Wal*Mart which was cozy and we looked around there, mostly just goofing off in the toys section. This definitely helped cheer both of us up after the rough day before, and things got even better when we found a sign for a HOOTERS a little past Midway. After seeing it, we both decided there was no way we were leaving the area without stopping there, so we did. At first we were really nervous and unsure what to expect, but there were a surprisingly large array of different people in there. Once inside, we both couldn't stop laughing and agreed that it was an awesome place. It helped that our waitress was easily the cutest girl in there, and there were some HOT girls working there, believe you me. She was really nice and the burgers and fries weren't too bad either, but it really was the atmosphere as a whole that made it such a fun and hilarious experience.

We left Hooters feeling like the trip had finally taken a turn for the better, and decided we'd go over to Midway to wait for Joe. This brought back tons of memories walking around the cozy airport and both of us couldn't help but comment on how much better that place is compared to O'Hare. We really hadn't waited there very long at all when we saw Joe come through the gates and head down to the baggage claim, not even noticing our presence behind him. We followed him a good several minutes giggling like school girls before he turned around and was surprised to find us behind him. Joe's flight was on time, but he had taken a bit longer than we expected to get off the plane, so this left us with only minutes to exchange pleasantries and get back to our car before the parking limit was up. We rushed over to the garage and made it out with only about one minute to spare, then drove back to the hotel so Joe could settle in for a bit before our trek to Navy Pier.

Actually getting into Navy Pier was way more difficult than I expected so it took us quite a while to get in there, but that was fine. The ride there was actually pretty fun, our first real drive with Joe into the city. On the way there Chad commented on how the dark red and orange clouds above the Willis Tower made it look like some abominable plots of world domination were being hatched up there, making us all laugh hard. Night was falling as we arrived at the pier and the wind was beginning to howl, causing the closure of all but one of the rides there and cancelling the boat rides. This initially was a huge bummer, but after going inside the cozy McDonald's and having a meal our spirits all began to rise and we decided to just wander around and explore the inside of Navy Pier. At some point we ended up outside again and found this awesome looking ride that was still open that I guess you could call a simulator. We had actually wanted to go on this ride when we were there during trip 2, but still had no idea what really to expect. We got on it and were surprised to find out that the thing rocked all around like crazy making for a hilarious and extremely fun ride. At one point it was bouncing around so much that Chad slid over and crushed me, causing me to fall over on top of him, and then OVER top of him and into an area where I'm assuming no one is supposed to sit. At that point I was really just rolling and bouncing around inside of the ride without anything to hold me back until it was over. Great moment.
After we got out of there we wanted to walk around the outside more, but it was getting awfully chilly out there and the wind was getting pretty bad also, so we went back inside and wandered all over Navy Pier and into some areas I'm not sure we even were supposed to go. Sometime along the way I found an elevator and wondered where it lead to, and when we got inside I noticed it went all the way up to a 7th floor, which I had no idea even existed and much less knew where it lead to. When we got to the top we just found a bunch of doors and kept going through them until we found some EXIT sign. Confused, we opened the door and were shocked to find ourselves on the roof of Navy Pier, which provided an epic view of downtown Chicago. I actually hung out there a few minutes before hurrying back inside before security inevitably thought we were up to no good and chased us out. Luckily for us that didn't happen, so we went back down to the ground floor and decided to go out for a breath of fresh air. It was then that we unknowingly walked into this big tent where Oktoberfest was being held. We all looked at each other with looks of confusion as we witnessed people dressed as old country German people drinking beer, dancing hilariously, and singing polka sounding music. This was unlike anything any of us had ever seen before, and as we exited the tent after walking around in there confused for a few minutes, all of us laughed hard and wondered exactly what we just stumbled on. Chad insisted we go back in there before the night was through, and we did, but not before walking ALL OVER the inside of Navy Pier into some places I don't think we were technically even supposed to be including this really dark, empty banquet hall looking thing and an area that appeared to be a large boiler room. After spending some time back at Oktoberfest which was easier to find than would be expected considering how lost we became at one point, we ventured way out to the end of the pier where we were shocked to see the wind battering everything in the area. Me and Chad felt a little more adventurous than Joe and climbed up these empty bleachers sitting near the water's edge and were nearly blown away by the fierce winds. We were taking it nowhere near as badly as Joe, though, who Chad said appeared like he was running around on FIRE trying to escape the harsh and cold winds. The Windy City's name definitely reigned true this evening.

It was getting late now, so we rushed inside away from the elements, and then walked around the inside of Navy Pier one last time and then find our car, which took some doing, but the walk there was actually extremely cozy. This lead to a very pleasant cruise around downtown Chicago in the car before we retired to our hotel rooms that night, definitely feeling that for once on this trip, we had a day go really well from start to finish.

Saturday, October 1st, 2011 - Day 4

Saturday morning was another hard one to wake up, being the fateful day that me and Chad had to leave our large suite behind and sneak our stuff into Joe's tiny hotel room, which was easier than we expected given that he had the room next to ours. I showered and got ready back at the suite one last time before heading out for a day at SHIMMER. Things went fairly smooth that afternoon and we got into the venue in a somewhat timely manner, but it was after the show started that things became miserable for me. These are ALWAYS the parts of the trip where the lack of sleep suddenly hits me like a truck, and I was really struggling to stay awake for the first half of the show. I mostly spent the first 4 hours texting Chad stupid things over and over for my own amusement, and even talking a bit with EFD who was back home and not on the trip this time. This misery was soon made worth it when Britani Knight made her first appearance of the afternoon, who I was really happy to see again. It got much better from this point and I really enjoyed the second half of the show, and even bought a Britani shirt at intermission thanks to Joe, and I wore it the entire second half to show my support for that fine young lady. Once the show was over I was a little put off to find out that the after party location had changed after I spent so long trying to remember the directions to the obscure bar they were planning on hosting it at, and I did indeed get fairly lost trying to find this new place creating a tense moment or two, but once we found the place it was pretty cozy, if not VERY overcrowded, but we all three had a good time in there just goofing off and hanging out. Me and Chad ordered a pizza which I loved and Chad seemed to dislike, but I gotta admit that if I had never tried a Chicago style pizza before and was expecting a regular pizza, that would be really strange to get that. All in all, it was a fun night. The sleeping arrangement back at the hotel, though, left quite a bit to be desired, but you can't expect much when cramming 3 guys into a 1 bed room, and we all knew that was how it was going to be when we set out on the trip.

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 - Day 5

The morning started off quite uneventful and lazy. That is, until nature called and I went into the bathroom to take care of business. I spent quite a while in there and took a pretty sizable crap, which I didn't expect to be a problem, but I decided to flush anyways before continuing taking care of business just to be on the safe side. When I flushed the toilet everything went down except for a few pieces of toilet paper, which was concerning but not at all indicative in my mind of what would happen next. I had only sat back down on the toilet for a few seconds when I decided something felt like it was wrong. Normally the sound of water refilling the toilet after a flush doesn't go on as long as it was this time, and I no sooner stood up when, to my horror, I turn to see the water begin to rush out of the toilet and all over the floor. Trying to avoid getting any of this unsanitary water on me, I jump onto the side of the bath tub/shower and yell "OH, CRAP." loudly, frightening Chad and Joe as it very well should have. I then open the bathroom door, race out of there, and find Chad and Joe looking on in terror as a good portion of the hotel room begins to flood as well. I immediately yell for someone to call downstairs and let them know of the impending disaster that is unfolding before our very eyes, and Joe eventually takes this responsibility but there is no answer. I then inform Chad that he needs to get downstairs as quickly as possible to get someone at the front desk to help us out, but he refuses saying that he's still in his pajamas. In this moment of chaos I start to get REALLY angry because technically, I'm not even supposed to be in this room, so I'm pretty much helpless in the situation. Luckily Joe who was already battling feeling sick that morning made a man of himself and went downstairs to find a plunger, which I promptly used to temporarily end the chaos. This would be very short lived as I desperately tried to make a run for it before someone found out I had snuck into that room the night before. On my way downstairs I run into the large, Hispanic handyman who has a look of betrayal in his eyes as he yells "WHAT HAPPENED, MAN?! WHAT DID YOU DO?! I GOT WATER GOING EVERYWHERE IN MY ROOM." I make up a very poor excuse as to why I'm there before literally running down the street to a bus stop where I sat on a bench, dazed and confused, wondering if I had just inadvertently created the second giant catastrophe of the trip.

15 minutes or so later, I come back to find out that there isn't anything we can do, so we just leave the mess for hopefully the cleaning lady and the handyman to take care of. I felt really bad about it for them, AND for Joe who looked quite miserable after this whole ordeal, but it was an accident of the purest form. Me and Joe decided to just go use the bathroom at the Burger King down the street, where we had an awkward discussion with a guy in the bathroom about the disaster that just occurred in our hotel room while waiting for the stalls to free up. We both cleaned up a bit and headed out for the second and final day of SHIMMER. The first half of the show was another 4 hours of misery for me, but again Britani saved the day. I really wanted to enjoy this a lot since it was going to be her last show at SHIMMER before she goes to WWE, and really she couldn't have gone out with a bigger bang. This night was quite possibly the best night of SHIMMER ever for me, especially after the great Madison Eagles/Cheerleader Melissa Title match which was just epic. All three of us had a blast that night and were sad that it was all over with, but glad that the last night was so awesome.

The afterparty that night was also WAY better than the first night, and although I was tired I did get to see Britani there and take this awesome picture with her where she wore my famous captain's hat. I also congratulated her on everything and told her how much I'd miss her at SHIMMER, but that I was really glad she's moving on to bigger and better things. To cap off the night I had this DELICIOUS Italian beef sandwich with mozzarella, before heading out to the car and attempting to nap. I soon was awakened by Chad who came in complaining about something Joe did in the after party, but that blew over fairly quickly. We all could agree that we were sad to leave, though, but we knew that we had to get some sleep before the long morning ahead of us. We pretty much went straight back to the hotel and to sleep earlier than I think we ever have during any of the trips, but it was sleep that was well needed.

Monday, October 3rd, 2011 - Day 6

Being woken up on Monday was just brutal, especially knowing what we had ahead of us. I very quickly got dressed and headed out to take Chad back to O'Hare airport, which went very smooth. I said my goodbyes and just like that, he was back off to Maine. Kinda a sad moment, but the sunrise drive there was super cozy. The drive back, though cozy as well, took FOREVER cause of traffic and at one point I got lost in downtown Chicago. I made it back to the hotel just in the nick of time to take Joe over to Midway, and that also went very smoothly. We exchanged goodbyes, and he too now was on his way back home leaving only me remaining, and now even I was on my way back home. The drive home as even more uneventful than the drive there, although a bit cozier as it was in the morning. I did stop to take a nap at one point which felt great, before continuing on home to Detroit where I arrived around 4:15PM. As awesome as this trip was, I sure was glad to be home and be able to close that epic chapter of my life without any further defamation to its name.

While things didn't always go as planned, and at some points even went VERY wrong, it was still a very fun trip that I will not soon forget and will definitely be talking about for quite some time to come. I'm just glad I got to spend time with such great friends who took real good care of me out there, and I'm thankful to them for making the trip possible for me, and for putting up with me through the chaos that I created during it.