Andy and I went to Rosemont yesterday for the Chicago Travel and Adventure Show. Rick Steves was speaking at 10:45 a.m. (his first lecture of the day) and it was packed.
We were standing in the rear so we didn't stay for the whole talk. He is quite entertaining and hawked his tours, which look fantastic and a bit off the beaten touristy path.
We walked around, talked to a lot of travel professionals and picked up lots of freebies. We got kettle corn from Dollywood, bourbon chapstick from Kentucky, little bottles of Limoncello from Italy (handed to us by quite attractive Italian women), flamingo socks from Winona, Minn., a few jar openers, mints, hand sanitizers and luggage tags. I love a good freebie.
The friendliest were the women at the Southern Illinois booth. Effingham and Jefferson (where Mount Vernon is) counties were left off their map so Andy asked what did those two counties do to piss you off? They laughed and said they have their own tourism bureaus. I said I was from Staunton and she said the town is covered by the next booth (Great Rivers and Routes) where I got the Route 66 keychain ...
and this flier. Those places look familiar. The women weren't as friendly though.
This Maui scraper should make the snow a bit more bearable.
Andy chatted it up with the man at the Jamaica booth and the guy pulled put this hat. The bags are full of lots of reading materials from all over the Midwest, Florida Keys, Alaskan cruises and Europe trips.
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