My last night in Chicago

I have so much to update! It's amazing how much can happen in only a week. First of all, I won a trip to Chicago to go to NeoCon! This is basically the largest design exposition in North America. When I say large, I'm talking 4.2 million gross square feet. 

I am so lucky to have won this chance with travel with some fantastic vendors from Salt Lake. They completely spoiled us! But not only was I spoiled (which I'll get to in another post), but I was well taken care of during one of the most interesting nights of my life. Gather 'round boys and girls- this is a good one.

I was scheduled to arrive back in Salt Lake late Wednesday night. That day we had a lot of tours planned. The weather kept threatening us, but it was actually a gorgeous day. Too bad it didn't stay that way. Just in time for our flight home came flash food warnings, tornado warnings, the works. Our flight got cancelled. 

Now we had a group of 21 people needing to get home.  Our hosts were seriously amazing in working on getting us each a flight. New flight plan? Thursday night. But now, where to sleep?

1st option? The airport! Actually, they were pretty impressive. They had a hallway lined with cots, blankets, and pillows. It's like they've done this before or something.

By the way, the airport has the BEST shopping. I'm saying, who doesn't want a pet-bag? I was tempted, but I resisted. 

2nd option? Well there was only really one hotel with rooms available. Let's just say there's a reason we didn't go there. Mainly the "no prostitution" sign and the happy reviews right here.

3rd option? We finally found a Marriott with 4 rooms open. We were in luck! So we travel on over and check in. Except wait... they didn't reserve us for that night. They reserved us for a couple of nights in May 2014.

Luckily, they had a couple of extra rooms that we convinced them to give to us after we threatened to steal all their complimentary toothbrushes. The boys got one room, and the girls got another.

So here are the stats for my night. 1 room.  9 girls. 1 carry on bag of actually useful things. 

In other words, SLUMBER PARTY!

Since we were all designers, we made beds out of everything we had- couch cushions, ottomans, dining chairs, etc. I think we all got a little closer. We learned a lot that night, like the definition of "spooning".

I had the lovely dining chair specialty.  

The night consisted of quotes like, "who has pants on?" while we all wore extra shirts from the one girl who didn't check in her luggage. 

Yes- it was awesome. The rest of Chicago is coming soon! For now, it's good to be back home.