Sports Geek fest in Chicago

I won’t bore you with the trip to Chicago, suffice it to say that we drove there and hit traffic and tolls, still listening to On the Road by Keroouak.  Still listening to this damn book people!!!  At least we’ll finish it on this trip for sure because we’re on the last disc.  Not sure how it’s going to end because they are currently in Mexico and driving, so doesn’t seem to be an ending in sight.  We made it to our hotel, checked in, and thought about an early night, but half price books were calling and John’s online trading partners were also calling.  So, we hit a bookstore and met up with some of the group at a pub by the convention center.  Surprisingly, there were two other “enablers” there with their men and I didn’t have to be alone as the one woman to come to the National Sports Collectors Convention.  We had some salmon, that did not even come close to Blue Lake Taverns’ salmon back home and we had a waitress who kept disappearing…The Fashion Outlets of Chicago just opened this weekend and this made it a madhouse, but I liked how they had an open green area in the middle so city kids had a place to play on artificial turf.  Had to take a picture of the guys under a “Kings” sign and got some feedback on what to call this trip.  I was going to call it Baseball Card Geekfest, but was told by Sal that they are “grown men who like to collect pictures of other men”.  I’ll just stick with “the National” and my readers are to know that this is the Comic Con of Sports collecting.  And if you don’t know what Comic Con is…well…!?!  The National has many sports stars there for signing autographs and we have several copies of John’s want list, so that I can search for hits to his collection at the same time as him.  He has been preparing for this in the form of checking his list, getting presents together for his trading partners and getting a box of goodies to take to the swap session that they always have.  I am bringing a bottle of wine and my crocheting….