St. Elmo's had me on fire!

Hello!  It is a gorgeous sunny day here in northern Michigan.  The lake is beckoning!

Our trip to Indianapolis was fast and furious.  Tuesday morning David and I got up and ran together for 20 minutes.  I did my strength training exercises and a little while later we hit the road.  NO ONE wanted to be in the car again, especially for another six hours, but we did it.  One quick stop at an outlet mall for family picture outfits and then we arrived at our friends house at 2:30 PM.  Our friends have a son E's age and a daughter K's age.  J was a little lonely but he survived.  We spent the afternoon at an amazing pool.  A good time was had by all.

That night we drove into the Colts hometown to an amazing restaurant called St. Elmo's.  It has been around for over 100 years. David and his friend Tim went there once or twice in college and David couldn't wait to go back.  It is known for great steaks and shrimp cocktail.  When we were shown to our table I made the mistake of asking about the chicken.  The waiter said "You do know we are a steak house, right?!"  I also don't like shrimp so that appetizer was lost on me.  That said, I did try the cocktail sauce.  Can we say HOT!!  OMG - I never knew horseradish could be so hot.  I mean - open my nasal passages hot!  I ended up ordering the filet mignon and it was fantastic.  The best steak I have had in a long, long time.  Melt in your mouth yummy.  And I am sure it was fattening as well.  I once had a college PE teacher tell me that anything that tasted good wasn't a healthy choice!  I cannot say enough about how good the meal was, but it was one that I won't have again for a while.

Wednesday morning we were treated to homemade biscuits and gravy.  I am not a gravy fan, so I helped myself to biscuits.  Many, many - ok, three - biscuits.  Then we were on the road again, this time to Chicago.  It seemed to take forever, but in reality was only about three hours.  We parked about a mile from Wrigley field and walked towards the park.  Lunch was at Goose Island.  I had some hummus me with delectable pita bread and cucumbers.  Then we were on to the park.  As a Red Sox fan I was very interested to see "Fenway of the mid-west."    

There were some things about Wrigley that I liked, but it is no Fenway.  I do like the ivy on the outfield walls, and the intimate feel of the park, but that's about it!  Luckily we had tickets under the overhang, so we beat the heat.  Unfortunately we could not get tickets together, so for the first three innings or so I sat with E & K, and DQ sat with J.  Believe it or not the park was pretty full, so our hopes of moving to together were dashed for a while.  Somewhere around the fifth inning DQ moved over, and he and J stayed with us until I left at the top of the ninth with E & K.

We had a LONG drive back to MI after the game, getting in around 12:40 AM.  I don't want to go on a road trip for a few weeks!  We were all happy to get out of the car.

Other than the amazing meal at St. Elmo's, I ate OK (ahh - I forgot about the biscuits!  oops).  Lunch on the way down was a salad from Wendy's.  I highly recommend the new berry almond salad there.  I didn't put on any dressing, and I didn't even see the almonds, so I think it was a good choice.  On the way home from Chicago I again got a salad, this time at McDonalds.  I got a bacon something salad with ranch dressing.  Not as low cal as my lunch the day before, but better than other things I think!

Hoping to get back on the "wagon" ASAP!

Laters - 

Mummy Qua