Chicago Pipe Show Part 1

So, I was up at 4:30am Friday morning to shower, shave and clothe myself before my ride to the airport arrived to take me and a friend of mine to catch our 6:00am flight to Chicago.  We made it to St. Charles, IL checked into our hotel a day before the pipe show and got ready to do some adventuring.

So there we were…  waiting.  The road we were on into Chicago is under repair (although I only saw one crew in a multi-mile stretch of torn up road and they weren’t actually doing anything) so the drive in is taking forever.  Nevertheless, we finally make it in and down to the theatre district were we find a parking garage that’s happy to let us park our car there for the day for just under half a year’s wages and then we head off on foot.  We check out a local tobacco store that’s been around for a little over a hundred years, light a pipe and then move on.  I won’t bore you with all the details but over the course of the day we visited Vosges Haut-Chocolat which makes some of the best chocolate ever including Mo’s Bacon Bar, ate lunch at the World Famous Billy Goat Tavern & Grill (their double cheeseburger is one of the only burgers I’ve eaten that I think lives up to its reputation), the original owner of which cursed the Cubs. The guy behind the counter insists that you have the double whether that’s what you ordered or not but it turns out he was right.  Then we had coffee and tea at Intelligentsia, went to the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower), ate a deep dish pizza dinner at Gino’s East of Chicago (quite tasty), smashed two pennies in the penny smashing machines for my friends future son (then backtracking through half the city looking for one he thought he'd lost... it turned up in the floorboard of the car the next morning), broke into the United Center grounds so my friend could get a picture with the Michael Jordon statue and over the course of 10 hours or so walked approximately 88,000 miles.  It was a good day and we slept well when we got back to the hotel after being up for 19 hours.  Although, according to my friend apparently my snoring is something to behold.  I wouldn’t know as I was sound asleep.   Then off to the first day off the pipe show.

The Chicago pipe show is the largest in the country and there are pipes and pipe carvers from all over the world ranging from a few dollars apiece to thousands of dollars apiece as well as tobacco and accessories.  It takes quite a while to walk through and browse all of the tables especially when you stop to talk to the people who are selling their wares.  The whole day was spent wandering through the show looking at what was available and making deals and contacts with one short break for a trip to the tent for a pipe.  The Chicago show is unfortunately non-smoking in the convention center since Chicago passed a smoking ban a couple of years ago but they have adapted quite well and the party tent is always busy.  After a busy day which included buying some very nice Genod pipes that range in price from $45-$200 we met up with Steve Monjure, Phil Brown, Joao Reis and a couple of Just For Him customers who also came to the show and went out for a steak dinner.  After dinner we headed back to Steve’s room for a bit and then down to the party tent for a while.  We decided to call it an early night and headed back to the hotel a little after midnight.  Two days of walking and standing had turned us into old men.  Luckily, I’m still as pretty as ever.  Now it’s off to the second day of pipe hunting.