Submitted by: Julie Baldwin, Taylor Hughes, and Stacia Streetman.
Thursday, Sept. 28
We left from Greer High at 12:30 so we got to miss the last periods of the day. We arrived in Charlotte around 2 p.m. and checked in and went through security and everything and then sat in the food court for about 45 minutes. Taylor of course got rice, but most of us just got smoothies because we had already had lunch. This (trip) was going to be Emily (Eckroth) and Alli's (Beam) first plane ride so they were pretty nervous. Our plane took off at 4:35 that afternoon, but poor little Alli was really scared and grabbed my leg before we took off and said, "Julie! I'm scared to death over here!!" But we took off and of course everything was fine. We landed in Chicago O'Hare and went to the van rental agency and then headed to Mr. Masse's daughter, Nicole's, house. For dinner we went to Dave and Buster's where there were games to play. Alli, Taylor and I were definitely having fun at the basketball game and I for sure hit the jackpot when I scored 81 points. We were sore the next morning though. Then we all went to get our prizes with our tickets and finally we went back to Nicole's house and went to sleep.
Friday, Sept. 29
Mr. Masse woke us up at 7 a.m. to take showers and eat breakfast. We left the house at around 8:45 that morning and headed to Chicago. Our first stop was the Field Museum. We all made dinosaur molds at the museum. Then at 11 a.m. we left to go eat lunch at Ed Debevic's, which is like, a less mean version of Dick's. We had a lot of fun there and it turned out our waiter had run cross country at York High School in Illinois where Joe Newton is the coach. We left Ed's and went to the Rock-n-Roll McDonald's, where we took some sweet pictures. Then we went to Hard Rock Café for a second. After that Mr. Masse dropped us off on Michigan Avenue and we went into a few stores until we got to the John Hancock building where we met up with Nicole and went up to the 95th floor to get dessert. The view was incredible, but we didn't end up getting any dessert because we had to run. Then we went into the bathroom, which was pretty sweet too. I'm not going to lie because you could see the city from it, and we changed into our running clothes. We went for a run with Nicole down Lake Michigan for about four miles and we had to go fast the last mile. It was pretty hard. Then we all piled into the van to go to Niles West High School for dinner. On the way there we stopped for Gatorade because we were all dying of thirst. We got to the high school and went into the cafeteria. The Niles West cross country team was there and also a boys team from Kansas. We had dinner, which was pasta and salad, and then we definitely had some dessert. Mr. Masse "mingled" as he called it with the other coaches and some of the athletes, but most of us just stayed at our little table because we were shy. After dinner, we went back to Nicole's house and had a little team meeting. Then we went a little crazy for awhile and started the greatest quote book ever on a paper towel, but we still ended up going to bed pretty early.
Saturday, Sept. 30
We woke up 6:45 and had breakfast and got our things ready for the meet. We left the house around 8 a.m. and went to Niles West and ran our races. It was fun! But really hard at times. There were 48 teams and two divisions, red and white. We finished second in the red division and three girls finished in the top 10 (Stacia, Alli, Jessie (Davis)). Then we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch and had the spiciest mild wings ever! And don't forget chicken, and smiley fries that were really good, but only with ketchup. On the way out Alli and me saw a "bling" machine and of course we got us some chains (or as Taylor put it, ice). On the car ride back we all definitely fell asleep. We dropped off Stacia and Taylor at the hotel because poor little Taylor has horrible cat allergies and couldn't stay at the house because she was about to die and Stacia being the great friend that she is sacrificed herself and went with her.
Then we all showered and got ready and went to eat dinner at Be-Bop Café in the Navy Pier. They played jazz music there while you ate. Then we all went shopping and to the Fun House. Alli and I didn't go, though, we took pictures and got frappuccinos. We all met up and ran to the ferris wheel because it closed at 10 p.m. and it was 9:59. Stacia and I ran off first, but unfortunately we went in the complete opposite direction and were at the wrong end of the pier. We realized we were at the wrong place when we ended up at a wedding reception. Great shortcut! Then the mean old men who ran it wouldn't let us on even though we were only 30 seconds too late. Taylor begged them for about 10 minutes and even offered to pay double for a ticket but they refused! Stacia even said, "Pleeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeeee!!!!!" for a really long time – but no sympathy. So we ended up just taking pictures in front of the Chicago skyline and being really late for Masse\'s curfew. Oops! Then Stacia got the front seat, and coach talked to here the whole time, so she didn't get to sleep ANY!! On the way back we turned the radio up really loud and were bumping in a 15-passenger van. We passed a security guard and I'm pretty sure we completely freaked him out. We got home, but we surely didn't go to sleep. Nicole made us some great popcorn with her popcorn maker and loaded it with butter. They were great. Then we watched "Bringing Down the House". I only watched half of it because I was tired and had to pack but eventually we all got to bed.
Sunday, Oct. 1
Mr. Masse woke us up at 6:45 this morning. It was horrible. We showered, ate breakfast, and finished packing. We left Nicole's house at around 8 a.m. and thanked her about a million times. Our airplane took off at about 11:15 a.m.. Finally we got back to Greer at 5 p.m. We all had a bunch of fun in Chicago and are very thankful to have such a great coach like Coach Masse!