MARK MY WORD: FAMILY GETS ALL 'DOLLED UP' ON VACATION TO CHICAGO

Never mind the Cubs, Chicago is a great city.

It has a beautiful lake and plenty of museums.

But it also has a ton of traffic and no place to park. Interstate traffic creeps through the city at rush hour, if it moves at all.

And there's nothing like a summer trip to Chicago to make you appreciate Southeast Missouri gas prices.

Our family just returned from a summer vacation in the Windy City where gas was selling for $2.28 a gallon at some stations. No matter where you sent, gas was over $2 a gallon.

Of course, some people in Chicago just park their cars and take commuter trains or crowded buses to get around.

Naturally, we had to take a train one day. We told the kids it was an amusement ride.

Initially, they liked the idea. But by the end of a day of sightseeing, they were ready to be rocketed to their suburban hotel room for a swim in the pool. They weren't impressed with how long it took to get back to our hotel, via bus, train and airport shuttle.

Our Holiday Inn was near the airport, which traffic-wise is an eternity from downtown Chicago.

The city also is ringed by toll roads, which makes for a lot of stop-and-start traffic.

Getting on and off the highways can be a challenge, particularly when you want to go west and the highway entrance only is for eastbound traffic.

It all amounts to a puzzling maze for visitors, particularly since Chicago has done its best to avoid putting up traffic signs that might provide directions to motorists.

Still, armed with an Illinois map and plenty of high-priced gas, we made the trek downtown each day to visit all those museums like the penguin-rich Shedd Aquarium, which is anything but a shed and costs an arm and a leg. It takes a lot to feed all those penguins, whales and dolphins.

There's also the Museum of Science and Industry, which has a whole lot of neat stuff like a coal mine and a fairy-tale castle. You can walk for miles in the place without ever passing the same exhibit twice.

Our daughters were suitably impressed, up to a point. But for Becca and Bailey, nothing compared to the American Girl store, a three-story mecca of American Girl dolls and doll clothing.

The place had everything a girl could possibly want. There was even a theatrical production and an American Girl restaurant on the premises and plenty of helpful employees ready to take all your money.

The place had tons of doll clothes and matching outfits for mom and dad to buy their kids.

We skipped the matching outfits and concentrated on the doll clothes. Still, there were a myriad of choices. The American Girl doll can dress for everything from school to swimming to backpacking to horseback riding.

There's even orienteering accessories, including a flashlight to guide her way in the dark.

These dolls have a larger wardrobe than a Hollywood movie star.

We came away with two shopping bags of doll stuff, including the doll-size souvenir T-shirts. All in all, the girls viewed the trip as a success when they weren't feuding with each other.

Joni and I viewed it as a success that we managed to get out of the store without having to file for personal bankruptcy.

All in all, we had a great time. We even managed to find our way back home with all the doll outfits and all our real-people stuff too.

We couldn't ask for much more, except, perhaps, a little more gas money and a clothing allowance for all those American Girl dolls.

When it comes to Chicago, it's hard not to get all dolled up.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.