More From Chi-Town

December 03, 2011

I'm going to try this again and see if my pictures will upload correctly tonight. OSU is beating the snot out of OU, so I am just going to turn my attention elsewhere.

We stayed at the Palmer House. This is a magnificent, old hotel. The architecture is breathtaking and we were treated so well. I can definitely see myself taking my girls here for a weekend someday -- someday in the distant future -- but, a Chicago shopping and museum and sightseeing trip with my best girls is definitely on my bucket list. The man would probably like about a day of this, but the next time I go I plan on covering much more ground!

The lobby was just -- no words, really. Tea time was held every afternoon (with a reservation, of course).

The ceiling of the lobby was painted by an artist who also worked on the restoration of the Cistine Chapel. Pretty impressive stuff, right here.

The guest rooms were nicely appointed (good vocabulary word). I'm pretty impressed with anything that isn't a Hampton Inn, so this color scheme and those drapes just sent me over the edge. I wish I'd taken a picture of the carpet in the hallways. Their emblem is a peacock and that was woven into the motif of the carpet. I feel sort of silly posting about the interiors, but Pioneer Woman always posts "hotel tour" pics...

And, this would be the point when Blogger will not upload my photos without messing them up. It just has to be Blogger's problem because I added them Facebook this morning without any problem.

The above photo I copied & pasted from FB -- it was blurry anyway because it's a revolving door. Did you know almost every business entrance in Chicago has a revolving door? I can only assume it's because of the wind.

The first night out found us doing a little shopping. I texted pictures to Parker Jane of the stores she loves -- a two story Charlotte Russe, a two story Forever 21 -- and she was quite envious of old mom. Here's H&M. There are no H&Ms anywhere near Arkansas. We are not that sophisticated. Parker never reads my blog, so I won't spoil anything by saying that I pretty much knocked her stocking stuffers out of the way here : )

Sorry that the justification keeps switching. At this point, I just want the dang pics to post. Anyway, here's Macy's. I was not prepared to be impressed by Macy's. They're not that uncommon, but this one was eight floors of big fun. Their Christmas department was amazing.

When we returned to the hotel, we came in through the side entrance and found this great loveseat. What a great place for shooting some photos! On our last night in Chicago, a real model was having a photo shoot in our spot! She was wearing a purple evening gown and there were lights set up. I really, really wanted to take a picture of her having her picture taken, but I wasn't sure what the proper etiquette would be in such a situation, so I kept walking.

The 11th floor elevator landing was also a great place to take a picture before heading out for Chicago deep dish pizza Friday night. Pizones was superb. Can't say the same for Uno's.

Yum. Yum. Yum. Jamie wanted me to attempt to bring some authentic Chicago pizza home, so I ordered from Pizones and picked it up about 45 minutes before left for the airport. With some careful shuffling around in my carry-on, it traveled just fine. We had trouble getting home when our connecting flight was canceled, but at 5:00 Tuesday morning, after I walked through my door, we warmed this bad boy up and it was still delicious!

I'll just wrap this up with some other pictures I snapped. We attempted the Christmas parade Saturday night. Nope. Never again. We did manage to enjoy the fireworks at the end as we could actually see those. Overall, this trip was a wonderful getaway -- professionally and otherwise!