Hawkeye Weekend

I'm a little behind on our current events. The weekend before last we met 2 other couples with kids in tow in Chicago for the Hawkeye Game. We rented a townhouse in my old neighborhood.
It was nice because it was on a quiet dead end street with a park at the end of the block for the kids.
It was close to the U-Haul on Fullerton, a place which has caused me much misery moving into and out of Chicago.
The first night we were there we walked up the the Diversey Gino's to get a few pizzas. While our pies were baking we stopped into a little local bar with an Old Style sign. There were 2 dogs on the floor and it was like walking into someone's living room. We were the only 3 people in the bar who didn't know everyone else. When our pizzas were finally done we walked back and chowed down. Here is a photo of the holy grail of pizzas:

Yes people, that is a Gino's Deep Dish Pepperoni, the mother of all pizzas.

The next morning I explored the neighborhood and found a close grocery store, Starbucks and other essential establishments. We all piled onto the El for a trip down to Soldier field.
Here is a picture of our naughty one on her first El ride.
It was a long walk from the train station to the Soldier Field parking lot but when we got there we were rewarded with a crazy tailgate party. Its all very hush hush and top secret.
The party seemed to end way too soon but we were all excited to take Soldier Field.
There were 40,000 Iowa fans and 20,000 Northern Ill. fans. The balance of fans looked something like this:
Iowa proudly took the field.
The action started a little slow with a few incomplete passes but the Hawkeyes eventually won.
The band was of course stellar both in the stands
and on the field.
The walk home didn't seem as long as the walk there, but I wasn't carrying 30 pounds of beverages on the way back. Those ended up in the old gullet.
The rest of the weekend was just as fun. I lead us on a wild goose chase to get Penny's Noodles. They have a dish called hot pepper noodle that we call HPB. Unfortunately they were closed for renovations and we ended up at an awful Buffalo Wild Wings.

The next day we took the kids to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Everyone had a good time but when it was time to leave our baby threw a huge tantrum. We hadn't seen the lions yet.

After the zoo Easy E, D and I tooled on up to Wrigleyville for some Cubs action. There were no tickets so we ended up going to the Cubby Bear for some dogs and Old Style. That night we went on yet another of my wild goose chases to find a place we used to eat at called Lindo Mexico. Despite me calling them and confirming that they were open, we found out that the restaurant closed years ago. DOH! It was salvaged by a walk down the block to another naughty Mexican restaurant that we used to frequent.

It was a great way to spend a weekend!