We are Tired! Chicago/Wisconsin Weekend

Lately we've been the poster kids for the phrase "work hard, play hard". Lots going on at both our jobs and Holly's car died on her far from home. It took over a week to fix and we just finally got her back. When the opportunity to spend an overnight in Chicago became an option, we jumped on the chance to enjoy a fun night out. In our usual burn-the-candle-at-both-ends approach, we took this little jaunt right before a weekend trip to Wisconsin (which really isn't far) for a wedding.

Chicago

Dave had a late-day cardiologist appointment in the city (all good!) and we decided we could Hotwire a room and stay overnight. We found a decent price for the Sofitel (we read the reviews for context clues to predict before we book), which is a property we don't mind. The rooms are smallish, but the bathrooms are spacious and pretty.

Dave's goal for the day was to tour two rooftop lounges we have not visited. First we went to Vertigo Sky Lounge. We arrived pretty close to opening time, but found the nice looking rooftop empty. When we tried to order a drink we were told the event starts at five. They were closed for a convention party. After that let-down (we will try another time since it was nice) we went to the Godfrey Hotel to try their lounge. The outdoor area was closed for a private party, and the inside lounge tables were all taken or blocked off. We ended up with beers at the inside bar. Ugh.... At least the bartender was nice and we met a brewer for Deschutes.

After those two fails we kept our sights on ground level bars for fear of another shut-out. We opted for BlackFinn Ameripub because we remembered from prior research they had a decent beer list. Lots on tap to choose from with reasonable prices for the tourist town area. We had pints of Scurry from Off Color.

We know everyone is waiting for it: the next stop was Three Dots and a Dash. We lucked into some bar seats and settled in since dinner wouldn't be for another two hours. A benefit of serving each drink in its signature glass is it allows patrons to keep easier track of the beverages they have sampled. This visit we tried:

For dinner we paid a repeat visit to RPM Steak. We had great food during our first visit, but a horrible table in the overflow room. This time we made sure we would be seated in the main room and received a nice booth. The food was wonderful once again: Bacon appetizer, Parker House rolls, and nice filet mignons. We opted out of desert in favor of having a final drink at The Peninsula Hotel's bar.

Breakfast the next morning came from Stan's Donuts. Dave bought a few before his his doctor's appointment (tip: Don't walk into your cardiologist visit with a sack of donuts) and our chosen favors included Biscoff, Captain Crunch, and Banana Nutella. They were good, but huge which made eating a whole one in a sitting challenging.

Beeriversary

Our local brewery (Chain o' Lakes) was celebrating their 2nd anniversary with releases of special barrel-aged beers throughout the day. We enjoyed a few beers in the Biergarten, listened to some live music, and had some decent brats served on pretzel buns. It was a great event, but we couldn't stay long because we had to head to...

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

We were attending a wedding in nearby Lake Geneva, which is a town that was developed by Chicago's elite in the late 1800's. Mansions line the lake and the town offers dining, shopping, tacky t-shirts, and hordes of people that can't walk when the light turns green or follow traffic signs. We planned to stay over two nights at Geneva Ridge because of the hotel's booking policy.

We had a great time Saturday celebrating the marriage of a fantastic young couple, catching up with friends, and enjoying the terrace overlooking Lake Como. Best wishes to Mike and Nora.

Sunday we forced ourselves out of bed (we may have stayed out late) on an overcast morning to take the 10am Mailboat Cruise on Lake Geneva. Holly has never taken a cruise on the lake while Dave has taken two. The Mailboat is a large 75' boat that slows down at docks to let a teenager jump off, deliver mail to a lakeside mailbox, and jump back on. On Sunday they deliver papers. Luckily for us the skies and rain cleared up as soon as we left the dock and we had a very pleasant cruise.

We toured a few stores in town (most of our favorite places have closed), toured the craft fair, and had our first so-so experience at Sprecher. We returned to the hotel exhausted and even had thoughts of packing it in and going home. After relaxing a bit at the pool we felt better and had a nice time enjoying the patio bar area (great fire pit) and an almost private dining experience in the Lakeview Lounge.

The next morning we left separately for work. At one time there was a conversation about seeing the One Direction concert Tuesday night at Soldier Field. Thank goodness we didn't follow through with those plans. Hopefully we don't get some crazy ideas for the upcoming weekend (ignoring all ads for Chicago Food and Wine Festival). Even though we don't take advantage of most area events and attractions it is nice to be in a location where you can do so many things within a 90 minute drive.

 

Weekend at The American Club - Kohler, WI

Recently we spent a weekend in the Sheboygan, Wisconsin area. Our main reason for the trip was to visit the American Club Resort in nearby Kohler (the brewery tour mentioned in our last post was just icing on the cake).

Kohler, Wisconsin is famous because it's where your bath tubs, sinks, toilets, and faucets come from. The town of Kohler was founded after the company of the same name planted its roots there. In 1918 the company built a dormitory for its immigrant workforce within easy walking distance to the factory. Tenants received full board and access to a pub, bowling alley, and on-site barber. The building was named The American Club in hopes to inspire the residents to consider U.S. citizenship. In the early 80's the property re-opened as a hotel and it is still owned by Kohler. We've known of the hotel's reputation for a long time but we finally put the wheels-in-motion to visit after seeing it featured on an episode of myhousewifelife.

Accommodations
The American Club has two separate hotels within walking distance of each other (branded together as Destination Kohler). There's the Inn on Woodlake which is a modern building connected to a high-end strip mall, and there's the original American Club building with its Carriage House attached to the spa and Kohler Design Center. We chose to stay in the American Club main building and lucked into a room upgrade. We received a welcome champagne at check-in and found chocolates in our room with our welcome packet.

The standard room has a king bed, wet bar/mini bar, and Kohler shower with multiple jets and features. Our upgraded room included a sitting area with couch and chairs plus a 2 person jet tub. All the rooms are named after famous people. We stayed in Maude Adams. Unfortunately our room was directly across the street from the Kohler Corporate HQ with its working clock tower.

There are several pleasant public areas in the main building aside from the restaurants and bars. There's a good sized library with lots of seating, a smaller formal room with fireplace, a large courtyard and garden, and a stain glassed enclosed coffee house.

Dining
There are dining options in the main building, the spa, the nearby shopping center, and the Kohler-owned golf courses. Shuttle services linked all the properties. Friday and Saturday we experienced the Horse and Plow pub. Great beer menu here with a lot of options on tap and in bottles.  Many of the items were local and quite a few were dark malty beers (hooray!). We had some snacks for lunch on Saturday including the Honey BBQ Bacon Bites. These were pieces of pork belly smothered in BBQ sauce.

Friday night we took a short shuttle ride over to the Blackwolf Run Golf Course. This was the resort complex's steak house that resided in a log cabin overlooking the course and forest. The weather was pleasant enough to dine outside. We were treated to a great sunset while we had some wonderful specialty cocktails and appetizers of coconut/almond shrimp plus beef/asparagus rolls. For main courses Holly chose the beef filet and Dave the pork chop. Both were great choices.

Saturday's dinner was in The Immigrant restaurant in the basement of the main building. We started off with cocktails in the wine bar before being escorted to our table in the English Room (rooms were named for countries). This was a "jacket required" place where all the servers attending to you addressed you by your last name. At one point a server realized they missed our bread course and bolted to rectify it. Since we did not want to be annoying with flash we did not take good pictures of the food. We had a cucumber gazpacho amuse bouche, shared appetizers of asparagus and barley risotto plus tiger prawns with ricotta cavatelli. For entrees Dave had the filet and Holly the sea bass. Dessert was a chocolate ganache peanut butter and jelly creation accompanied by the best ever pressed-pot Peruvian coffee. Everything was excellent.

Sunday we had the brunch buffet in The Wisconsin Room, which was the Club's original dining hall. Brunch was especially busy that morning since it was Mother's Day. We could not secure a reservation earlier than 1:15, but we checked in early and sat down at our table at 12:45. One nice feature about this buffet was the unlimited mimosas. The variety wasn't as large as we've seen on other buffets but the quality and maintenance certainly was much better. Selections we enjoyed included shrimp, rocky road bread pudding, creme brûlée french toast, bacon, eggs benedict, little pastries, etc. We ate way too much and we're excited to have the 2 hour drive home ahead of us.

Activities
We'll start with a list of what we did not do: We did not take advantage of the resort's nature preserve - it was a drab weekend. We also did not golf on either of the two golf courses. We did take a drive to the resort's Whispering Straits golf course. It took us about twenty minutes to head to the club placed on the shores of Lake Michigan. The main building (do you call it a club house if it's not a club?) looked as if it belonged in Scotland. We enjoyed a beverage in the second floor lounge and learned that this will be the home of the 2015 PGA Championship. Dave's first thought: Where are all those people going to stay? Where do they park because the lot was pretty full this morning?

We visited the Kohler Water Spa. We were excited about this experience because of the hype they placed on their website about all the amenities in the spa like the public area pools, sitting areas, and snacks. If you weren't receiving a treatment (2 treatments other times of the year) the public area use would cost you $40pp.

Photos from the web since taking photos in the spa is highly discouraged

We arrived early and were escorted to our locker rooms. Each had an in-room hot tub, cold plunge, sauna, and steam room. The lockers are connected to a public pool area with a waterfall. There were 8 lounge seats around the pool and snacks of tea, water, apples, and almonds. We made our way to the 4th floor hot tub. No snacks up here.... This area included 6 loungers, some outdoor seating couches, and a bench by the fireplace. We were able to order some champagne while we relaxed before our treatment.

We chose a couple's treatment of combined river bath + massage. The treatment started with us getting a full body exfoliation. The massage technicians used loofah gloves to perform this task. Next, we were led into a very large Kohler bath tub complete with multiple jet settings and lighting sequences. Following a twenty minute soak we were escorted back to our tables for the full body massage. The pressure applied was typical resort spa pressure (not so much). After the treatment we thought about hanging by the main pool, but the area was overflowing with people. They clearly did not have enough seating for all the treatments occurring during the day and people were lingering.

We were a little underwhelmed by the spa. Our treatment was nice, but we expected a lot more spa amenities, especially for the price and service charge if you weren't getting a treatment. They definitely needed more snack offerings and seating in the common areas. The Hotel Hershey's spa was a nicer overall experience.

We browsed the shops at the Inn on Woodlake. Many of the stores were of no interest to us: furniture, clothing, gardening, etc. We did enjoy browsing the chocolate shop, toy shop, Wisconsin shop, and the food market. Any grocery store that drops you into the wine section upon entry wins our vote.

The final activity we took part in was touring the Kohler Design Center. The basement holds the Kohler Museum and the top two floors showcase Kohler products. They had sample applications of their products in dream themed bathrooms. This was fun to walk through, but would have been more fun if we were in the mood to actually remodel a kitchen or bath.

We really enjoyed our weekend at The American Club. We enjoyed the hotel, its amenities, and dining options. We would like to go back (maybe in early fall season) to experience the nature reserve and check out more of Sheboygan. We did not miss the hassle and high cost associated with parking at Chicago hotels. Everything was very relaxed and the staff did their best to take care of the guests. We had enough time over two nights to do everything we wanted to, including the brewery tour in town.

A Bunch of Chicago

Dave said it feels like he's been in Chicago more this past month than any other time in our almost 20 years of living in Illinois. We've had lots of new experiences during Chicago's Rock & Roll Race Weekend (see post). In addition, Dave's dad was in town from New York recently which led to two more visits to the city.

Day 1 we took the Metra into the city. Our first stop was The Field Museum. We've been here before but there's always something new (or old....Ha Ha!) to see. The main reason for today's visit was to see the special exhibit on the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (The Columbian Exposition). But before going into the special exhibit we made our way through the entire Africa and Egypt exhibits.

The 1893 World's Fair exhibit was mostly focused on recreating displays that guests would have seen attending that particular event vs. featuring the creation and design of the fair. That means we saw a lot of rocks, taxidermic animals, and jars of oil. Still very interesting. We learned that the fair's structures were temporary except for the Palace of Fine Arts (Today's Science and Industry Museum); which became a museum after the fair featuring donated items from the fair. That museum morphed into the Field Museum and moved to its current location in 1921.

The exhibit dumped us in a gift shop where they had 2 interesting items. There was a cool book called Chicago Then and Now combining old pictures of well-known Chicago locations with today's photos. Another item was a pint glass that reminded me the Field had their own exclusive beer. The glass was fun. We didn't have the Field beer since other beer was in our near future (and it sounded hoppy).....

We needed to grab Holly a souvenir. Fortunately a Mold-A-Rama featured one of her favorite animals. In case you've never seen one, the Mold-A-Rama is a Chicago museum staple - put in $2 and watch a plastic statue being made right before your eyes!

Soon-after, the fact settled in that Dave was stuck carrying this thing the rest of the day.

After a brisk stroll through the taxidermic animals on display (they have a lot of them) we called it quits, jumped in a cab, and visited a new Chicago bar located in Printer's Row: First Draft. The place was fun and had that old-time after-work bar feel: tin ceiling, dark wood, and high top tables. There were over 60 beers on draft featuring a good mix of all styles and a few local options. We made sure to try a few with our lunch.

The next day we had another trip to the city: this time driving to Evanston and taking the El to Wrigleyville. Lunch was at one of our favorite places: Goose Island Wrigleyville. A lot of people write-off Goose Island nowadays because of the purchase by InBev. However, Goose Island still runs its two Chicago brewpubs independent of the mothership which still gives them lots of creative freedom. We had Belgian darks, Weiss beers, and their Wrigleyville Cubbies Blueberry exclusive. We lucked-out and nabbed a beer garden table where we enjoyed pulled pork and Cuban sandwiches.

After lunch we walked over to Wrigley Field for the Cubs game. Dave's dad loves baseball and seeing games in old parks. We don't share that love. Wrigley Field is a pit and the north side baseball team deserves a stadium redo like almost every other ball team. The Cubs aren't good so give us something to occupy our time, like a Jumbotron or a bunch of mascots running the field.

Dinner was at Smylie Brothers Brewing in Evanston. Things would have gone better here if two things didn't happen: the kitchen losing our order and the porter being replaced a day before our arrival. Holly didn't find any beers of interest so we went with Moscow Mules. We were there an hour without receiving food and our waitress offered no explanation or apology. The two beers Dave sampled, the Cali Common and Berry Weiss  ("Purple Line") seasonal were decent. The wood oven pizzas were very good.

That should be the end of some Chicago adventures for the next few months. The fall marathon season is gearing up so we'll be visiting some other exciting cities soon: Logan, UT is next.

Chicago Weekend: July 2014 - Part Two

For Part One, click here.

Part of what made this Sunday unique was the fact that we only revisited one Chicago favorite - and it wasn't Jake Melnick's.

Dave finished the Rock and Roll 5K around the same time our friend Eddie finished the half marathon. That gave them enough time to return to their rooms for showers and head back to the after-party for a couple of beers. Once Dave met up with Holly it was time to go back to the hotel so she could shower and to pack up/check-out. The Palmer House race special rate didn't extend to Sunday so we changed to a cheaper hotel picked up on Hotwire. We moved from The Loop to the heart of the Mag Mile: The Westin was next to the Hancock Building.

We dropped off our bags, hopped in a cab, and met up with our crew back in The Loop at Pizano's Pizza. While most folks dined on pizza we both opted to get burgers (our preferred post-race indulgence). Everyone enjoyed their meals and had fun hazing the new-hire waiter ("I don't know if I can do that for you.  I just started here and don't want to get it trouble").

After lunch most folks had to get on the road and head home. Eddie and Anna still had some time before their flight so we headed to Plymouth for a few drinks.  Plymouth has a bar on it's 4th(?) floor roof. It was a pleasant space in a very unlikely place. They had nice signature cocktails, a decent beer selection, and (according to a lady in the elevator) the best salad ever!

We walked back to The Palmer House and said goodbye to our friends before heading north towards our new hotel. Just down the street was a bar Dave had researched.... The Drumbar was on the roof of the Raffaello Hotel that was aiming for that speakeasy feel. They have a nice outdoor deck and a really nice indoor lounge area. Looks like a good place to visit in the winter. An added bonus was finding a great dark beer on the menu. We lingered here for a while and decompressed after a very busy 48 hours.

We decided to check out our hotel's bar before dinner. The Grill on the Alley had that typical Chicago restaurant look: lots of dark wood and amber-glassed light fixtures. The wraparound bar was large and stocked a good variety of bourbon and whiskey.

Finally it was time for dinner. We made reservations at RL - the restaurant attached to The Polo Store (owned by Ralph Lauren). RL is listed as one of the go-to Chicago restaurants for celebrity sightings. We didn't have any such luck. RL is a classic restaurant seemingly decorated for old-money clientele. However, the diners were not all Buffys and the staff had a casually efficient way about them. For starters Holly had the escargot and Dave had the lobster bisque. Our main courses were halibut and pork chop. Both were good except the halibut was a little overcooked. For dessert we split the cookies and brownie plate. A little generic, but we didn't want anything too elaborate or rich. Dave said the coffee was excellent.

Our last stop of the evening was at one of our favorite places - the bar at the Peninsula Hotel. It's more like being in a large living room than a bar or lounge. We settled in at a corner table and had our final drinks of the evening.

That wraps up another successful Chicago weekend!

Bonus: Dave was in the city last week for a doctor appointment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. They recently added a food court on the second floor. On a whim he tried Saigon Sisters, an offshoot of the Lake Street main location serving modern Vietnamese cuisine. He got the Hen House bánh mì which is a sandwich on French baguette with caramelized chicken, lemongrass, ginger, mint, lime, crushed peanuts, mayo (hold the mayo). Rave reviews from Dave.

More Chicago Dining and Stuff

The morning after seeing the Jimmy Cliff show and dining at Takashi we made our way to The Adler Planetarium. Holly has wanted to visit this museum since she moved here in 1995. Getting there was interesting - we rented Divvy bikes. These are bicycles placed all around the city that you rent for 24 hrs at a time. The catch: you have to re-check the bike into a station within a half hour of starting in order to avoid additional charges.  A rack was luckily right outside our hotel. We were able to cut through Millennium Park and ride along Lakeshore Drive. That was the nice part. The not-nice part was the fact that there was only one rack in all the Museum campus and it was far from the Planetarium. Later when we were renting them to head uptown it took over a half hour to get a bike because of user errors by other guests and the misadventures of a family of ten trying to rent these things.

The Planetarium was good, but didn't occupy us for more than 2+ hours. We watched two shows - one boring presentation with photos from the Hubble Telescope and another one starring Big Bird and Elmo. Staff members kept cautioning us that we picked a kid show (and we didn't seem to have any kids with us) and maybe wanted to go to another offering. Who would skip a show with Elmo talking to a Muppet from China?

Time for lunch. Based on the success of Takashi's dinner we decided to try the chef's other Chicago concept: The Slurping Turtle. This is a more casual outlet with a lot of the focus on traditional ramen style noodle dishes. Dave's entree was much better than Holly's other than the fact that all the hot sauce was floating on the top and not mixed in. There was a good portion of meat in the bowl, but it all just seemed a little off. The best portion of the meal was getting a smaller serving of the pork belly appetizer we had the night before.

After a little shopping and trying a Firecakes donut we stopped for a beer at Howells and Hood. This spot has a prime location in The Tribune Tower across from The Wrigley Building. 120 beers on tap with a decent local focus. Good spot.

Usually when we go to Chicago we have a dinner reservation somewhere. This time we decided to wing it - and by winging it we mean Dave came up with a list of restaurants to hop between - if it was too crowded at one place we'd move on..... First stop was RPM - made famous on Giuliana and Bill. The place was packed and it wasn't even 7pm yet. We stood by the bar and were able to get seats within ten minutes. We tried two appetizers - provolone stuffed peppers and zucchini blossoms. Both were very good and some of the other food being delivered to other guests looked tempting.

Our next stop was at one of Chicago's newest restaurants: Tanta. This is a Peruvian restaurant concept from The Emeril of Peru - Gaston Acurio. We've been looking forward to visiting this restaurant because we enjoyed two of his restaurants when we visited Peru last year. The place wasn't very big and it was very crowded. We again lucked into bar seats within 5 minutes of arriving. There were three staff members behind the bar desperately trying to keep up with the drink orders. We found a nice selection of signature drinks using Pisco and some good beers available. We ordered the chicken skewers which came with mashed sweet potato and large kernels of Peruvian corn. We also finally tried cerviche. This version had a bit of a Thai influence - heavy on the cilantro and peanuts. Dave liked it, Holly not so much. Everything coming out of the kitchen to other diners looked good so I am sure we will return.

The final dining spot was SushiSamba Rio. This is a large restaurant with a big sushi bar set in the middle. It had a dance club atmosphere with lower-lighting and in-house DJ. The cocktail bar area was small - about seven stools and two couch areas. We sat at a couch and had two rolls - one crab and one waygu. Both were enjoyable. Eventually we moved up to the bar seats and got to enjoy some people watching. Our bartender was one of the nicest servers we've ever had in Chicago. Another fun place to put on the comeback list.

We decided to have a nightcap at the Conrad Hotel's bar since it was on the way. When we got to their bar and found it was in the middle of the bright lobby area we turned around to head to our hotel. We were at the Hyatt where we knew we had two decent bars to visit.

Our only plan for the next day was to find a place on the north side of the city to get lunch. We were hungry for burgers and our research brought us to The Bad Apple. This corner location has a neighborhood bar feel covered in tattoo art. One of the most impressive things about The Bad Apple was the beer list. Huge! The only complaint about the list was the fact that it was sorted by country/state and not beer style. #firstworldproblems. We decided to be daring and try their burger called The King: hamburger with peanut butter and bacon. Yeah sounds weird.........but it's our new obsession. The combination is fantastic. The Bad Apple used a homemade peanut butter that held to the heat of the burger.

One thing we "lucked" into was Half Acre Brewing was across the street from The Bad Apple. Half Acre was recently rated the best brewery in Illinois by one source. We've never been  fans since their flagship product Daisy Cutter is nasty (hoppy). We figured let's sample a few other products to give them a fair-shake. The verdict: still bad. Everything was over-hopped, even styles that should be low on the IBUs and malt-forward. Half Acre is a one-trick pony.

Overall a great weekend filled with lots of new experiences.

Jimmy Cliff - Takashi

First, we will answer the question you just asked in your head: Jimmy Cliff is not dead. He's 65 years old and released a Grammy-winning album last year.

When Dave heard Jimmy Cliff was coming to Chicago, and it wasn't a race weekend, he expressed a strong interest in seeing the show. Jimmy was playing a new theater in Chicago, the Concord Music Hall, which appeared to be a nice sized venue for a show like this. Tickets were $34 each after service charges, general admission was the only option.  The show was on a Friday so we'd still have the whole weekend to do other things. With that said, there were some downsides: The venue was in an area of the city we were unfamiliar with and not close to any lodging, Holly needed to get in 12 miles (straight) of running for her upcoming marathon, hotels were pricey that weekend, and reggae shows generally start late. But everything fell into place and we ended up spending two nights in the city.

We cabbed from our downtown hotel to the Bucktown / Logan Square neighborhoods. Good research led us to find that The Map Room, one of Chicago's first craft beer focused bars, was just a block away from our chosen dinner location. This is a fun spot to have a couple of drinks at, but be warned, no kitchen.

Dinner was at Takashi, a Japanese-French fusion Michelin rated restaurant run by Takashi Yagihashi (from Iron Chef and Top Chef). We chose to sit on the sidewalk patio to get that city-dining experience. Within 2 minutes we witnessed a car back into a taxi cab. Fun! We shared three appetizers: tempura roll, scallops and gnocchi, and pork belly. All were excellent and could have been center-plate features on their own.

Our favorite was the pork belly, which was served with pieces of steamed buns, greens, and spicy mustard. Diners were encouraged to make a sandwich out of the ingredients.

Main entrees were next. Dave had loin of veal and Holly had pork two-ways. Both were good, but overshadowed by the appetizers. If we visit Takashi again we are going all appetizers.

Finally dessert: Holly's was right up her alley...butterscotch panne cotta served in an eggshell with a pistachio macaroon. Dave had a chocolate cake with bananas and raisin paste. Both were great.

From setlist.fm

Off to the show! Our plan was to get there close to when the doors would open. With Holly's current foot injuries it would not be a good idea for her to stand for hours. Fortunately the venue had a lot of seating in the back of the theater. The two long rows of booth-type banquettes filled up quickly. We were comfortable and figured once Jimmy came on stage we'd get up for a better view. Luckily, they opened one of two balconies. These areas were little enclosed rooms that offered a side-view of the stage. We were able to move up there and sat at a little table. There were glass windows protecting the people below from our potentially falling drinks. We hung out here for the opening DJ, opening singer (Ethan Tucker), and Jimmy's first number.

Jimmy Cliff and his band started off with a ten-to-fifteen minute medley on the bongos. We couldn't hear too well from our balcony seats so we moved down to the main floor - much better sound. He played for about two hours doing his its as well as some covers of early ska songs. He was in high spirits and danced around a bit on stage.

The audience was one of the most polite group of people we've every seen at a show. We certainly weren't the youngest folks here, but not the oldest by a long shot. There was a good mix of men and women and folks of all races. Towards the end of the evening we walked through the crowd to the front of the stage to get a close look and no one was putting up resistance (see how we worked in a Cliff lyric there?). We stayed close for two songs, then moved back because we were polite like that.

The set list was full of hits, some we had even forgotten about. Cliff and crew put on a great show that night and we had lots of fun. Our pictures from the show are grainy iphone photos so we'll share some from reggaeville.com.

We left the venue close to 1am, found a cab, and decided we wanted one more drink. We weren't sure if our hotel bar would be open so we hit The Wit since Dave knew they had a rooftop bar that would likely be open. We waited at the velvet ropes to talk to the hostess but heard her tell folks in front of us that the cover was $10 ladies and $20 men. Forget that! The main floor bar, State and Lake, was open and very nice. There was a guy playing guitar and singing..... Reasonable prices on drinks and bar snacks. Good way to end the night.