I had lived in Illinois my entire life, but I had never been to Chicago.
A couple of years ago, I wanted to go to Chicago for New Years Eve.
My sister told me she would go with me, but they didn’t have any vacant rooms in the hotels in Chicago. The closest nice hotel she could find was in Alsip, Ill, which was a small suburb of Chicago. They weren’t calling for inclement weather, but there were a lot of lake effect storms. New Year’s Eve dawned bright and sunny, but we never got to Chicago for midnight. There were small snow showers that left the roads icy and my sister refused to drive because she wasn’t familiar with the roads. We ended up staying at the hotel where there was excellent HVAC and we could watch the New Year come in on our television. We talked about heading someplace that was close and out of the snow, and all we could find was Dotty’s. Dotty’s was in a small shopping center and it offered a casino atmosphere with dining, and a variety of gourmet coffees, wines and beers. It wasn’t Chicago, but it was a fun atmosphere. It kept us inside where we weren’t in the snow, but we had heat to keep us from freezing. We gambled a little, and ate the most amazing cheeseburgers. We washed it down with beer and brewed coffee. I may have come to Chicago for a New Year’s Eve party, but we stayed in Alsip, ILL for Dotty’s and it’s atmosphere on New Year’s Eve.