Thanks again for the guidance. Both shops were top notch.
I made it to both Iwan Reis and Jack Schwartz before meeting up with my buddy for the Bears game. All the chairs were full at Schwartz's, but there is a nice beer garden right outside in the courtyard of the Board of Trade where they'll still let you smoke, so I camped out there to smoke a La Flor Dominicana Coronado Lancero (good, creamy taste, a bit soft construction-wise though) and drink solo.
My buddy arrived, we had a few beers, we went to the game and had a few more beers (left when we ran out of beer and the Bears were still ahead at that point--I think...) then wandered around the museums, parks, and lakeshore and had another Coronado Lancero (better constructed this time around) and my buddy liked his so much that he demanded that we smoke more of my cigars, so we each had a LFD El Jocko Maduro (knocked my socks off--super licorice-y and tasty, would have been perfect with a Guinness) while puttering around and not finding any place downtown where you could sit down outside with a cigar. I had to put it down a little early which really annoyed me.
I had to catch the 12:30 train back to the 'burbs where my wife was planning to pick me up at the Arlington Heights station. However, it seems that I decided to take a quick nap on the train until I was awakened by an angry conductor, someone handing my ringing phone to me (plus five increasingly panicked/outraged voicemails from my wife), and the loudspeaker announcing that we were approaching the Barrington stop.
She wasn't too pleased.
*****
I went downtown on Monday as well (with plenty of stern warnings not to pass out on the train, and that if I did so, I was on my own to get home or deal with the angry conductor--I made it...) and hit up Schwartz's again and got some more El Jockos, Schwartz's exclusive LFD Billy Club (a larger version of the El Jocko with a lighter Maduro wrapper), and an LFD culebra.
*****
This morning I was smoking a DPG Black Corona Especial as my wife, mother-in-law and I had our coffee outside while the dogs ran around the yard. I made sure that they were fine with telling me to move if my smoke bothered either of them. As I got down close to the nub, my MIL turned green and ran into the house to barf twice. She said that it was the smell of the cigar, but that it hadn't bothered her at all until the very instant she realized she was going to puke. Weird.
That's all for my updates for now. I'll be in Illinois for a little while longer, although I may have to cut the trip short if it looks like Miami has a hurricane on the way...
