Thanks again, everyone, and in particular JJ5! If I knew you in person, there would be cookies coming your way this morning.

We had a fantastic dinner at Spring Friday night, even though my husband was really starting to panic over the next morning's excursion. Our concierge added fuel to the fire, because he said no car services ran that early in the morning, and also told my husband that no cab would go out that far.

Saturday morning we left the hotel at 6:30, walked to the red line, had a moment of panic when we were trying to transfer to the orange line and walked out onto the street...but we just had to climb up to the el, and from there we went straight to midway, got there about 7:30.

Catching a cab at Midway to Orland Park was no problem at all. It was meter and 1/2, so the final fare was $50 + tip. Glad we didn't have to pay from downtown (assuming we found a cab that would go). We told the cabbie to take Harlem, and arrived with plenty of time to spare.

BUT...no one had thought to mention to us that the cemetary was a 30 minute drive from the funeral home and church. This blew all my (and JJ's) planning on getting back to downtown from Tinley Park. I had left my map in the hotel room and so was CLUELESS where I was at that point.

Luckily, it turns out the cemetary was at Wolf and Roosevelt, so a few mile drop-off from one of the uncles put us at Forest Park...the very end of the Blue line. Trains every few minutes, and an easy shot back to downtown. What a relief!

Thanks again, JJ and thanks to everyone who kept topping this for me, I really appreciate it.

For the foodies among you, I'll be reviewing what we ate on Chowhound's Chicago board (where I'm known as danna).

Glad it worked out Litespeed!

Litespeed Chick, I thought about you Saturday as I was in Chicago myself. It was hot, and I glad you had some time downtown.

I'm glad it worked out. Getting back from where you ended up was actually more direct. The cabs are expensive- fares have increased and most, if not all, would not take fares outside of their Chicago limits. That's why we use the trains or hire reserved limos for a bunch of us. We are not all that far in mileage from downtown but have always been the poor stepsister for public rail transportation. One of our lines had to fight to get a toilet on the train and just succeeded. And I'm finally getting my station stop and platform at U.S. Cellular from Metra in 2007-08. It only took 10 plus years of "planning".

I'll look at your food line on chowhound. No need for cookies, and am just glad you didn't get stranded.