Garden of Life: Chicago::Madison::and a 240Z

Pete and I met over 25 years ago while in our freshman year in college. One of the first things I remember learning about Pete was his love for a certain type of car, a Datsun 240Z, and that one day he would own one.

Fast forward to the summer of 2004. Pete had taken the boys on one of their annual baseball road trips which brought them to Chicago. They made a stop to see some of my relatives and had a BBQ dinner with my cousin Cindy, her husband John and my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bruce.

{2004}

I love this picture of the boys in front of my uncle's car! {Look at how little they were!!}

{2004}

John and Pete started talking cars and Pete found out that John had purchased a 1972 Datsun 240Z a few years prior, and was now parked in their garage needing some work. Pete mentioned to John that if he was ever interested in selling the car to let him know.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Pete received an email completely out of the blue from John saying he was doing a little spring cleaning and was looking at selling the Z.

Pete and John exchanged a bunch of emails and pictures, while Pete researched what it would take to get the Z up and running again. After much thought and discussions we decided that we would go to Chicago and look at the car and if we were still comfortable with it, we would trailer it home.

So this past weekend, in a borrowed truck and a borrowed flat-bed trailer, we made the trek to Chicago.

We arrived to our hotel Saturday evening and after unpacking and getting settled in, we headed out to grab some Italian Beefs for dinner at Johnnies. (It is always a sign of a good food place when the line is out the door and around the building. :)

We brought the sandwiches back to the hotel where my cousin Cindy and her husband John joined us and we spent a nice evening catching up on each others lives.

Sunday morning we headed to Naperville, IL (about 40 minutes away) to see Tyler, who just happened to be in the Chicago area for the weekend playing in an Ultimate Frisbee 'Chicago Invite' tournament.

The name of Ty's team... :)

Us trying to figure out this game :)

After watching a game of Ty's and visiting with him for a bit, we left him and headed over to our very favorite Chicago eatery, Gene and Jude's for some Chicago dogs.

The boys noticed this sign at the McDonald's next door which made us chuckle. (Gene and Jude's does NOT have ketchup and they make a fuss if someone even asks for it :)

Next up, it was finally time to get a closer look at the Z!

It looks like it all checked out. :)

We headed back to the hotel for a bit.

Then it was back to Cindy and John's to buy the Z and get it loaded onto the flatbed trailer. With Drew at the wheel; Pete, John, Jake, Bruce and I pushed the car down the long drive and up onto the trailer. It went much easier than I expected!!

Working on getting the car strapped down.

Greasy hands. :)

And finally a hand shake.

Made for a very happy Pete!!

To celebrate, we headed to the Pizza Joynt for some pizza and beer and to discuss a little more car talk.

Monday morning, we packed up and started our drive back to Minnesota with a college visit at UW-Madison on the way.

Pete did not want to trailer the car through the tight streets of Madison, so on the south side of town we found a quieter parking lot and left the trailer with the Z on it. {I was a little nervous about this part, but it turned out just fine. :) }

We took the campus tour of Madison for Jake.