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December 2023 (Part 03)

Chicago Trip

Steve and Andy headed to Chicago before Christmas.  Andy was done with his finals and had a couple weeks for holiday break before the next session of his masters program began in early January (literally, January 2nd).  So, we loaded up the car to move him to his new apartment.  The car was stuffed, including the car-top cargo carrier.  It took both of them to shut the cargo carrier and they had to lean on a couple of the doors.  We got there on Sunday night.  After heading to Portillos for lunch, we met Andy's landlord and unloaded.  We got home in time for a nice dinner with Grandma and Uncle Matt.  The next day, we headed to Ikea, Costco and Walmart the next day, filling the car including the cargo carrier again,  We went to Portillos for lunch again, because hey, why not?  We headed to Giordano's for dinner that night.

Had to take a picture of some of Grandma's decorations.  She is very happy to have the space for her dinning room set and the ability to still store and have some of her decorations.

On the way home, we stopped at the Indiana Dunes National Park, mostly because it was only a bit off the road and neither of us had ever been there.  We were a bit surprised at how disjointed the park area was, with several areas wrapping arond the Indiana Dunes State Park, a power plant, and an industrial site.  It was clear that it was created recently to preserve what they could, preserving lake shore, dunes, some ponds inland of the dunes, marsh areas, and even prairie and riverfront areas.  We started off at West Beach, then headed east to Porter Beach.

Andy sent this picture from his apartment window on his first morning in the new apartment ...  welcome to Chicago, Andy!