Day 9: Chicago, IL

Image of the day: A statue of Christopher Columbus near Museum Park.

Trip meter at start of day: 1,006.0 mi
Gas: None bought today

Chicago is all about meat, so my sister's college friend, Jon, was excited when he found a list of where to get the best burgers in Chicago. In exchange for helping move some of his and his fiancée, Amy's, furniture to their second-floor apartment, they took my Claire and me out to The Grafton Irish Pub and Grill, listed as the best pub burger in the city.

When we entered the pub, we were surprised to find the entire back half of it filled with folk singers and guitars. According to our waitress, they come in every week and play for hours. We sat near them partially because we wanted to hear some nice background music and because we didn't see any other tables. We enjoyed them for about 15 minutes, but after a plump woman named Kathleen came to our table and asked us to "talk a little more quietly, because they're doing some really amazing stuff over there," we decided to move to a booth that had opened up at the front of the pub.

Our burgers came relatively quickly, mine with pepper jack cheese, Amy's with a fried egg, and we started to eat. The first bite was amazing; the buns were buttery, but not greasy; the meat was so soft and tender that it must have come from babies. I devoured mine twice as fast as anyone else at the table and concluded that it was the best burger I had ever eaten. Jon said that it was the second-best burger he had had in all his life.

We finished our fries, then returned to Jon and Amy's to help them move their furniture. Usually when moving your friends' furniture, they save the burgers, pizza or other food as an incentive to keep you working, but these burgers were so good that we remained thankful long enough to help without a single complaint. Burgers that are good enough that they make you help a friend move in; now those are good burgers.