lincoln fest!

on sat afternoon, the 25th, a bunch of us headed down to one of chicago's famous street fetivals: lincoln fest. it's located an easy walk or el ride from my house - about a mile. i headed over to megan's house first to hang out and then megan, trish, kristen, and i went to the festival around 4. our main purpose was going to see tyrone wells play. i'd heard of him before b/c megan is a BIG fan, but i'd never heard his music. he was a lot of fun! i really enjoyed it. i'm going to have to download some of his music.

upon getting there, we found kirsten better known as hawaii since he's well, hawaiian and a big guy. we were standing in line to get a beer when he comes up to us and tells us a fantastic little secret. the cvs across the street and within the fest confines was selling beers much much much cheaper than the 5 bucks the fest was. so we headed off to cvs and were happy to find a big cooler out front selling bud light, miller light, and some other shittier beers for 1.69 for better stuff and 1.09 for the cheaper stuff! and they were 24 oz vs a teeny red cup outside. so we bought our beers and headed outside to find out we weren't allowed to bring them in to the fest. we had to stay behind the fence. crap! but not too bad, the fence was rather flimsy and easily climbed through. later we learned to smuggle the beers in our purses. once we were on the street no one cared.

stuck behind the fence! luckily, it was easy to climb thru:


we watched tyrone and trish's boyfriend john met us with his buddy, danny. another one of trish's friends, jo, joined us as well and then trish's sister, heather, and becca joined so it was one big fun group listening to good music outside. it rained for literally less than 10 seconds and then it was done. quite weird, but whatever...

yes, tyrone is a white guy... he even pointed out that he's probably the only white guy out there named tyrone:


the whole lot of us:


kirsten aka hawaii and meghan with tyrone on stage:


the yucky muscle guy we had to take a picture of...


drunky boys: john and hawaii


once tyrone was over, we went to clarks for some drinks at the bar while we waited for the next concert we wanted to see to get started later (they have 3 stages going and acts all afternoon and evening on all stages). there, they had more cheaper beers and vodka lemonades. i wisely stuck to beer. once kyle got off work, she met us there too - it was about 8pm at this point and we were all sufficiently sloshed so kyle had some work to do to catch up.

we then left clarks and headed for the stage closest to wrightwood and lincoln which is the opposite end of where the tyrone stage was. it was packed. 16 candles was playing - an 80s tribute band and they were awesome! we listened to them for a long time. i have no idea how long they played... but it seemed like a long time and it was packed. we definitely had to maneuver around a lot of people. kyle got hungry at one point and convinced me (not too hard) to join her and get some pizza. so we walked around looking for food and found the carnival games... so we had to play! i beat kyle at the water horse race game and she then tried to win a coin toss game so she could get a big stuffed animal. i won a mini frog with flames on it as my prize. we got our pizza, stuffed our faces and made our way back to our friends.

some drunky apparently took this pic! megan found that ball and it made its way to all the bars too that night:


kyle tries to win a ginormous stuffed animal:


while i kicked her ass at the horsey race game! there's my frog to prove it!:


once 16 candles was over, we tried to decide what we wanted to do. john wanted to go to the dark horse which was north by about a mile and a half - clark and sheffield. so we started walking north. we would have taken a cab, but trying to find one was not going well. we had lost jo and hawaii by this point and then a big school bus passed by us - and we saw heather and becca on it! it was a big school bus taking people to durkin's bar on diversey. great idea, but not what we wanted to do.

then, as we were walking my dear crazy kyle came up with a fantastic idea. a bar - shot pub crawl. oh yes, i do mean going bar to bar all the way up sheffield, taking a shot and then moving on to the next bar til we got to the dark horse.

we hit up the first bar: mad river and went with a girly lemon drop. as soon as we were done there, we walked out the door and went right on in to the next bar which is next door, vaughn's. there, we had another shot...hmmm... i think we had an o-bomb there. or maybe it was reversed - o-bomb at first bar and lemon drop at the second. whatever. anyways, once that had been taken we were on our way again. we past by kirkwood because there was a line and we didn't want to wait for our shots. we then skipped matilda's (which is on the corner of my street) b/c it isn't a shot kinda bar. then we made our way to trader todd's just on the other side of belmont. (i know the streets don't mean much to those of you not familiar with chicago... but...) at trader todd's it was my turn to buy the round (we were taking turns - one of us would walk up to the bar, order 6 shots and so on). i went with the red headed slut and since this is truly a campy fun place, we decided we had to do them on the skis!! so in the middle of the crowded bar, we did two ski shots (3 on one, 3 on the other). i managed to drip some of the shot on my boob - awesome to have a spot right there, but i didn't really care at this point... we then left there and made our way to redmond's. there someone decided chugging a beer would be a good idea and so that's what we all had. believe it or not, but that was the hardest one b/c it was so much liquid to get down and we had to do it fast b/c we were all wanting to move on and keep the party rolling. once we were done there, we finally made it to our destination where becca and heather were waiting on us. i forget who's turn it was to buy, but the waitress suggested we try the tic tac shot... so we did. and it really did taste like an orange tic tac.

kyle feeding trish a pretzel:


megan and her pretzel (you know, dinner):


shots at vaughn's:


kyle and the frog:


trish, me, megan, and kyle at trader todd's:


no idea what goes on here, but that's our group:


trish, megan and me roaming sheffield on our way to the next bar:


we found these guys waiting at sheffield's - another bar we skipped b/c there was a line. they were awesomely dressed in 80s full on gear!


tic tac shot at the dark horse:


becca, kyle, and me...clearly towards the end of the night...


we hung out there for a while - i don't think i had anything more after that to drink but maybe... anyways, kyle and i decide we are tired and ready to go and that the bar was kinda boring. by this point it's about 11:30ish and we leave. as we are walking we pass by a liquor store and kyle starts to head in... i was all i thought you were going home and she says in classic kyle style: i am going home. i didn't say i was done drinking! and she bought a bottle of wine (which she said she never ended up drinking). then we made a pit stop at a pizza place and after that we parted ways as our houses were different directions - hers west, mine south. so we said goodnight and called it a day. a fun day!