1. Start by finding tickets on StubHub.com. It's crucial to wait as long as you can before purchasing your tickets, because as the game day grows closer, people who are trying to sell their tickets through the website will drop prices. They'd rather sell them cheap than not at all. As you will soon see our $65 tickets were quite the deal.
2. As we traveled and listened to song, we were greeted by toll roads. These are likely unavoidable if your coming from Michigan and don't want to add hours to your drive by back-roading past these traps. *Also, never use large U.S. currency at the toll booths, or else you will receive back $17-worth of Sacajawea coins. Lesson learned.
3. Driving into Chicago really wasn't so bad. We first thought to park far away and L-train it up, but this would have been silly. Instead we followed signs up through the city on Highway 41, hugging the massive Lake Michigan. We followed signs to Cubs parking and ended up parking in Northern Lincoln Park (aka Waveland Park). $10 or less depending on duration. We parked right beside the tennis courts on the right of the maps below and walked a 10-minute stretch to Wrigleyville!
4. We were in sun the whole drive in, but as we approached the city, you could see it was engulfed in lake fog, which was quite eerie really. It kind of looked like smoke, which again felt funny. Once we had settled the parking, we relieved ourselves at the Waveland Golf Club and then went to visit the Lake. Here Marcus sits on the large steps down to the Lake while he downloads a weather app to see if the fog/rain-threat will break by game time. It has no indication, so I brought my shell to the park just in case.
5. Make sure to leave early enough (we left the Mitten around 6am) to spend some time in Wrigleyville. Tons of vendors outside the stadium and plenty of good eats! We stopped at The Cubby Bear and got an authentic Chi-Dog! Add a side of garlic fries and you can't go wrong. Here is my dog before I got a hold of it.
6. After lunch, we each got an item of Cubs gear to further validate our day trip, then it was time to enter one of baseball's oldest and most-beloved parks: Wrigley Field. It was in these seats ($65 each mind you) we watched the Cubs defeat the World Champion San Francisco Giants, 11-4. For the baseball die hards it was Dempster vs. Bumgarner. Highlights here.
7. We had two foul ball chances but Marcus was boxing me in our aisle and we left empty-handed. Also notice in the photo above, outside the stadium there are buildings with seats on top of them. These are not official Wrigley Field seats, but they sell just as well. They exists outside of left field too. You can also see the iconic ivy wasn't quite green yet. It was May 11.8. The sun came out prior to the game, which was really pleasant, but quickly returned behind the clouds to make things chilly. It rained just a touch in the 6th inning or so, but not enough to disturb anyone. I'm glad I brought my shell. We left the park, but not before the Cubs rose their winning flag and introduced me to a really silly sing-a-long called Go, Cubs, Go. After quickly learning the chorus, which repeats itself several times at the end for slow learners, we left Wrigley and stopped to eat at Yak-Zies where I got pizza. It was ok. Then we returned to our car to drive out of the Windy City to our resting destination of the Red Roof Inn in Mickawash, Indiana. It was there we prepared for the next day, when we would see this.
