CHICAGO - OH WHAT FUN

Where of where do I begin. We got started before 9 a.m. We picked up Dad and Bruce, loaded up the Murano and off we went. Of course stopped after an hour for a quick breakfast at McDonalds. You know this group, don't want to go far without food. then we are just at the Lake St. Louis exit and Bruce says, "I don't have the tickets" One look at him and I could tell, this was the truth, not Bruce just being funny, ha ha got ya kinda thing. It was true he had left the folder with all the passes to the golf tourney and to the Field Museum at the house. so at the next exit, we get off and back to I-70 back to Columbia. All in all it added 3 hours to the trip, but we all got to laugh at Bruce and thought it was real funny. We got to Chicago with 10 minutes to spare before our 6:30 dinner reservations. We ate a Brazilian Steak house which was awesome, we all left full and then went to the hotel and crashed for the night. Sun. we got up leisurely and had breakfast, then took a drive thru Western Chicago (or was it Eastern) just looking around and then drove to the parking area for Medina and went to the tourney. Weather was great. We watched a couple of twosomes tee-off on #1, watched some on the practice greens. We had 2 grounds tickets and 2 clubhouse tickets, Bruce and Dad went into clubhouse first to look around and get a drink and then Arthur and i went in. Then we walked down to #1 green and watched a couple of groups putt, then went and sat across water From #13 green (the signiture hole and watched several groups there, behind us was #12 green and watched some there too. Then we positioned ourselves at #2 tee and waited thru 3 final pairings so we could see Tiger. That was that. As soon as he teed off that was it, we walked back to the buses and our car and came back to hotel and watched the end on TV. Next we went to Famous Daves' BBQ for dinner and once again stuffed ourselves. Mon. we had to get up early and drive into Chicago with traffic (which ended up not being bad at all" We had to be at Field Museum at 9:30 for our entrance into the King Tut exhibit. All is well, all are happy and then at a stop light on Michigan Ave. we hear a loud noise on the Murano. Bruce is driving us thru traffic and he has commented that something doesn't seem right. We are a few blocks from our turn by Soldier Field to where we will park and we make the turn, and then there is basically no power, we are going slightly downhill so w/ remaining power and some luck we get turned into the street for the parking garage and make it to the side and that is it. IN Summary: The Transmission to the Murano is gone. Arthur tells us to go the the museum and leave him for the wrecker to come. We have already called our dealership here in columbia and gotten phone # for Nissan dealer in Chicago and called them and they are sending flatbed to tow the car to their dealership. We got go Museum. King Tut is good, but not near what we had hoped for. Finally after walking thru Grant Park and back to Michigan Ave and the Chicago Hilton looking for a rental car place (we then find out it hasn't been in that location for 2 years) we call a cab and go 18 blocks more and get to Hertz, rent a car and go 8 miles to where Arthur is waiting at service dept. of Nissan dealer. The Transmission has totally locked and also broken the left front axle. Needless to say at this point 2:00 p.m. we decided to skip other museums and just get back in one piece to Columbia. Long story short, Perry Nissan here in Columbia is going to retriev Murano and bring back here. Cost to repair in Chicago was way to high. Perry is talking to Nissan Corp to see what they can do. Our service guy at Nissan advises not to change transmission fluid unless warning lights indicate it is needed. Chicago Nissans first word, was it should have been changed every 30,000 miles and ofcourse transmission is going to break at 100,000 miles w/out the changes. This is why Perry Nissan is talking to our area factory rep to get assistance in this. In closing, it started out fun, although longer drive than expected, thank you Bruce. Great to see Tiger and a PGA championship, had great food and great visits, but the Murano didn't like the trip.