Pamcakes and Eggs

Hello Pamcakes readers!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aaron. If you read this blog AT ALL in the last 6 months, you know DARN well who I am. I asked Pam to marry me back in November. She said yes!!! Anyway, I’m entering a guest blog today and so without further ado… let’s get started:

So I’m writing this on sunday morning, Feb 7th. Pam is living up to her blog name this morning by making pancakes and eggs for us!! BUT, my mission today is to tell you about a trip to Chicago that my band and I took back in early December to play a couple of shows. Meeting of Important People is made up of Me (bass guitar), Matt (drums), and Josh (singing and guitar). I’ve been in this band for a few years. I enjoy it!! Yep. I drag Pam out to shows all the time… and she does a great job of acting excited! (kidding).

The first leg of the trip started EARLY on sunday morning (dec 6th). We had a show in Madison, Wisconsin that night. Thats ten hours, so we were loaded up with our gear and AMBITIONS galore!!! Here we are departing from ETNA! (Josh is driving)(Matt is singing)(I’m looking at the camera)

It was a long drive… honestly it was LONG!! Here are some highlights of that drive:

Rest stops: We spend alot of time in them on these trips. It tends to freak me out because they all seem to be identical… So after 2 1/2 hours of driving you get out of the car and walk into a building that looks identical to the last building you were in… WEIRD!!!

Alright… Let me explain… I know MAC donald’s is bad for you and I generally never eat there, but on these trips…. I dunno, we just can’t resist filling our stomachs with TOTAL GARBAGE!!! This is the definition of a GUILTY PLEASURE!!

Good presentation

Also keep in mind that we don’t normally take a camera on these trips… It was Pam’s idea that we take her camera and document everything we eat. So we were enjoying the mission!

I eat pretty healthy since I met Pam. Its like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: “…well, my girlfriend is a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian…” HAHA So somehow that makes me feel ok about all this junk.

The title of this picture is: PARTY JUG. We save money by drinking water from gallon jugs. Josh was really enjoying his drinking water!

More MAC donald’s on the same trip… I feel bad about this now… I didn’t feel bad that day about it.

Around dark we ended up at this outlet mall. They had some interesting eateries. We didn’t eat any… we were there for the bathroom. I love the name of this place though.

So we got to Madison. Funny little town… It’s only like a few hours north of Chicago… The show was good… not very well attended. We played good though. There are no pictures of us playing because I was taking the pictures. Matt and Josh are watching the other bands…

Other band…

Interesting crap around the bar… Check it out!

We had a blast… This was a FUN little show!!! You can tell by our faces as we departed to head back to Chicago to stay with a friend…

HA Ok, so, we drove back to Chicago and stayed with a friend of matt’s from high school, Jason. This guy seriously saved our lives… we stayed with him Sunday, Monday, & Tuesday nights!!! His apartment is pretty tiny, but we don’t care… Here was my bed:

We ruled this room the whole time… Seriously, thanks, Jason!!

We went to sleep right away… It was late and Jason had to go to work in the morning…

So first thing in the morning we headed out for breakfast… This was the first snow I saw this winter…

Nice neighborhood… Pam likes grocery stores… So I grabbed this killer shot…

The restaurant was called “orange” I think… Local chain… a bit pricey… But we got cucumber in our water… seems worth it… right?

Eggs benedict… times two… an omelet… and some pancakes to share… we are a sharing band!

We finished breakfast and came back to Jason’s apartment to practice a little song that Josh wanted to cover… mostly just having fun… It was nice to relax!!

Next we headed out again to visit a famous guitar store that Josh had visited before… as well as some other sights…

Army Navy store… Cool…

Merchandise… I never knew that narcotics agencies had a sense of humor…

I may or may not have bought this for Pam for her upcoming birthday… I cannot say either way…

Matt did this at one point… I don’t know what you call it, but I was impressed… so were the locals…

This store was AMAZING!!! This picture represents probably 1/10th of the stock. I knew that Pam and the blog readers would be THRILLED to see pictures of GUITARS… no…

Reading those price tags causes severe depression…

So at this point it was officially monday night… We stopped at a little convenience store to get some cereal and milk along with some bananas, eggs, and bacon for the morning… SAVE MONEY!!!

We ate some cereal… made some arrangements and planned to go get some Chicago style deep dish…

Its good having a guy who lives in Chicago with us… because he knows where the good spots are… Edwardo’s was GOOOOD!

We got a meat lovers deep dish… This pizza was HEAVY! And VERY GOOD!!!

I was like a regular FOODIE. I guess that means you are willing to embarrass yourself by getting a camera out every time you are about to eat anything… hahaha

That is Jason on the left.

Next we took a taxi to the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge. I’m told that this place was were Al Capone hung out during the prohibition. Its a really swanky jazz club now. All of the insides have been kept original for most of the century. We were warned not to talk at all during the band. I have to admit, it was pretty awesome. Too dark inside to take pictures though… Sorry…

OK… At this point we were exhausted… We came home to Jason’s apartment and (of all things) sat around watching the movie “swingers”. HAHA! What can I say? Afterwards we passed out and got up with a full day of sight seeing planned… But first, BREAKFAST!!! Matt made Omelets for everyone.

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I was in charge of frying the bacon. Ha, cheap bacon purchased from a convenience store. We were taking what we could get.

Not bad…

And off we go…

So we took the train into downtown. It was very convenient.

Pam taught me how to take pictures of myself. HA

Guess what city we were in…

I honestly loved this city… I had never really been there before. Here are a few more pictures.

Downtown

Finally, we went up to the top of the building formerly known as the sears tower… I’m sorry to say that the battery in the camera died up there… It was sad, I was really enjoying all the documentation…

But ya know what… Its for the best… that night we played a show and it was pretty good… We played with a Beatles cover band which is probably the only thing that I wish I could show you…

Thanks for reading my guest blog. I am honored to do one… I think Pam is refusing to read this before we actually post it. So keep in mind that none of the opinions expressed within THIS blog post reflect the views of Pamcakesandeggs!

Take Care!