Day 16: The Last Day of Chicago

This morning Eric and I had a bottle of champagne for breakfast, courtesy of Rachel!  We mixed our Cristalino with orange juice from the diner attached to the hotel.  We put lids on our mimosas and headed for the red line!  I scanned my CTA pass like a pro and walked into the turnstile bar... You see, we bought 3 day passes on Friday. We had to walk 3 blocks to a Walgreens to buy a one day pass, boo!

Our last time training into the city before the day was over!

Once we had our passes, we headed for the pier, catching a free trolley on the way.  We bought tickets for our third cruise of the trip and headed inside for lunch. This is when I had an interesting conversation with my brother about his second and third degree burns on his leg from fireworks.  We finished our lunch-beef and broccoli, orange chicken, and lo mein on the ship.  We have been on 2 cruises and a birds eye tour from the Hancck tower, so we just enjoyed the breeze and each others company and ignored the tour guide.  This is good, because his script was  over a year old and included "the Sear's tower will be officially renamed the Willis tower in the summer of 2009."

Enjoying our Chinese food on the cruise

Just enjoying the view from the cruise ship.

After the cruise we played another round of mini golf, and got al the way through it this time. Now the 95 degree, feels like more than 100, weather was getting to us.  The plan was to bus and train over to the Sears tower and then head home.  I called the hotel from the bus to recheck that it was okay to leave my car there for a few hours after checkout. I had previously okayed this with a receptionist.  The lady who answered said check out is at noon and cars will betowed after 1pm. I tried not to flip, as it was 2pm. She said my car was still there and asked how long I needed. She was going to give us until 3:30 which put our tower plans sback on track. That is, until I called to see how long the line for the elevator was... One to one and a half hours wait.

There is a gardens area up top of a building on the pier, very pretty!

So we headed out to pick up the car and hopefully find some pay parking near the tower. Everything was $15 an hour or more, until we found one that said $6! Success! We pull in, get our ticket, and find a sign around the corner that says "$6 for first half hour, then $17 per hour" So we paid $6 for our mistake and promptly left Chicago. We stopped at an Osco for water so we wouldn't pass out on the road.

The heat index was over 100 and I can't imagine the temperature inside the car when we got there, SO HOT!

Construction detours took us into a roadway into the "airspace" beneath the buildings.  I guess a lot of buildings in Chicago are built essentially up on stilts because trains ran all over the city before it was built.

The car issue also cut into our planned lunch of Chicago deep dish pizza. So we looked up pizza on the GPS on our way out of town. We missed Pizza Nova's exit, Angelo's Stuffed Pizza had Monday hours posted but was closed, Bacci Pizzeria's windows were covered with brown paper, and on our way to our last stop before giving up, Positano's Pizza, we saw it.  Giordano's!  This was our original plan in town.  We had a stuffed pizza with pepperoni and hamburger.

 Our last view of Chicago

 Inner Chicago gas prices

5 miles outside of Chicago

The heat and city driving have exhausted Eric

Now we're on our way home, hopefully there by 2am!  While driving we listened to the Dave Ramsey show on am radio until it fizzled out.  Now we've got a good jazz station flowing as we transition from dusk to night, Eric is driving cautiously, is search of deer and has found plenty of owls and bats so far. He then proclaims "a deer! A small one!" The brakes go on and I am darting my eyes around the side of the road, as he brakes my seat locks from when I adjusted it earlier and I let out a scream until I sheepishly realize where the popping noise came from. Four hours to go!

  Dave Ramsey!

We made it home safely just after 1:20, after bringing everything upstairs I collapsed on the floor with my babies!  I had to put my carseat [for Andrew], booster seat and swim stuff [for Jack], and purse all by the door so I couldn't forget to take it in the morning.

Day 15: Chicago Part 3

First off, last night I forgot about one pretty significant event.  Eric and I had been walking, busing, training, and walking some more for nearly 2 hours when we were stopped by a couple who asked us where the nearest church was.  We told them that we weren't from around here and didn't know, and they responded that we were the first people who actually stopped to talk with them so of course we weren't Chicagoans.  After talking for a minute, we learned that they had lost their home to a fire and they were looking for a meal.  Instead of asking for money, which we're solicited for dozens of times every hour, they asked (after tiptoeing around it for a minute) if we would walk one block to Walgreens and get them some milk and cereal.  We walked about halfway there before I remembered seeing that it was closed when we had walked by it a few minutes before all of this.  I stopped them and said we couldn't go any further but that we still wanted to help.  After making and eye-to-eye agreement with Eric, I gave them $20 and I thought they were going to have a heart attack.  We were showered with hugs and handshakes, and truly grateful eyes and voices of thanks.  They said it would feed them and their two kids for at least three days along with buying soap and toilet paper.  Eric and I left feeling slightly fulfilled that we had been able to help, but also downhearted that there are so many people who need support that aren't being helped.  Consider this my solicitation for you to do something this week that is outside your comfort zone to help others.

On to today!  Independence Day!

We started off the morning heading to the John Hancock Tower.  Eric and I were both pretty grumpy, probably residual feelings leftover from our stressful evening.  The elevator up to the 94th floor goes more than 20mph and we had a good time listening to the David Schwimmer voice tour.  Then we walked to a near bus stop to head to the Navy Pier again.  We got some tickets with our Go Chicago card and headed for the ferris wheel.  It was cool to learn that the ferris wheel was built for the World Fair, trying to top the Paris World Fair when they unveiled the Eiffel Tower.  Then we played half a round of mini golf before rushing off to our pirate cruise.

 

The John Hancock Tower

Us in the elevator

Our postcard view

We got to stand on a window washing deck!

My frame worthy Ferris Wheel shot from the ground

At the very top of the Ferris Wheel

Green and red golf balls!

The pirate cruise was fantastic!  Yesterday we saw that the ship has a lone green bench among all of the wood blocks for seating - we said then that we wanted to sit there for the cruise.  The line to board was pretty long when we got their from mini golfing so I didn't get my hopes up, but we made it to the bench!  We told a lovely pirate Theresa that we were on our honeymoon and got bumped to VIP status.  We played a part in her pirate stories, earned some doubloons by answering questions, and then we got to FIRE A CANNON!  I readied the crew by announcing the cannon, and Eric hammered the end of the cannon to light the gunpowder and fire it.  Oh!  And the pirate ship's sail broke while we were on it!  A rope broke and it went flapping for a few minutes before they were able to fix it!

The view from the ship, and source of our sunburns

Our green bench!

Our pirates, Theresa on the left

Part of the problem last night was that Bubba Gump Shrimp had an hour wait, so we didn't eat there for dinner and then couldn't find any food.  So we resolved to eat there for lunch today.  I had an alcoholic sweet tea, and Eric had some girly strawberry drink (it had an inconspicuous name, we didn't know it was girly until we saw it!), mine came with a drink shaker to keep and Eric's came with a hurricane glass.  I had CRAB LEGS and Eric had a cajun chicken sandwich for lunch.  The best part is that our table was right next to Forrest Gump's bench, where he was sitting greeting passerby's... over and over again... "Hi there, what's your name? I'm Forrest, Forrest Gump, you can call me Forrest."

Eric's manly drink!

My sweet tea drink

Our lunch, and Forrest Gump right behind us

We were then absolutely pooped, but decided to follow through on our plan to go back to the Planetarium to catch the 3D show.  We wandered the Gemini exhibit until the show started, and we both nearly fell asleep during the show.  I think the best part of it was at the beginning when they explained how 3D works.  When we left, the sky was looking ominous and it started sprinkling as soon as we stepped outside.  We were wet by the time we got to the bus stop, and the bus was full.  We became adventurous and decided to walk to the next bus stop, not caring how wet we got.  That's when the rain stopped, haha!

You weigh 1/6 of your weight on the moon, Eric is 25lbs!

And I'm 22lbs!

There was a fill in the blank wall - I want to be the first ___ on the moon.  People write their answer on the post it and stick it on the wall.

This is how excited we were for the 3D show!

A cool poster and quote from James Lovell

The mini storm that rained on us, for 3 minutes.

A cool sign on the L

We made it back home and rested for an hour before heading to the Lake Michigan beach to wait for the fireworks.  Chicago has more than 6 miles of uninterrupted beach, so all we had to do is walk to the lake!  We waited for nearly 2 hours, and saw a pretty good fireworks display.  I'm not particularly impressed by public fireworks - a lot of money and effort for a few minutes of display.  We definitely prefer doing things ourselves, blowing stuff up!  Oh, and it threatened rain with an incredibly ominous sky - but really the storm just helped darken the night more quickly so the fireworks show was better!

We learned that the best address in Chicago is "anything Lake Shore Drive"

Our spot on the waterfront

The top of the Hancock was red, white, and blue

Navy Pier fireworks!

Thousands of people there to watch!

The Coach store on Michigan Ave, for mom!

When we finished, we walked a mile or two and found an AMC theater and found a 9:50 showing of Twilight: Eclipse, we were 5 minutes late, but didn't miss any previews (Easy A looks funny!).  The movie was really good and we were excited to see the Harry Potter preview!  We realized that we hadn't had any dinner when we were on our way home nearing 1am.  We found a combined Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins and had a dinner of turkey/bacon/cheese flat sandwich, donuts, and Snickers ice cream in a waffle bowl!   Yummmmmm!

The end.  Goodnight.  And we got sunburned.

Eric has one wrist burn, and the other didn't!

Day 14: Chicago Day 2

Last night was tough for me, I definitely didn't sleep well.  I woke up fitfully feeling as though it was 25 degrees in here with my skin hurting.  Eric was kind enough to get me water, help me fix the blankets, and get me back to sleep.  This morning was much better, but the trouble wasn't over yet.  You see, I am hard on cameras and have broken my last 4 within a year of purchase via dropping them.  Last week I bought a "tough" camera, that is drop resistant up to 5 feet, and water resistant up to 15 feet, BUT it won't be in until after we get home from Chicago.  So I borrowed my mom's Canon Powershot for vacation pictures - as of this morning the flash has died, making clear pictures near impossible.

We finally left the hotel, now confident with our ability to navigate the L.  We took the red line past the loop and went to catch our first bus of the trip.  After about 2 miles, we realized that we got on the right bus, but we got on the west loop of it instead of the east and were heading away from our destination.  We proceeded to get off the bus at the next exit and waited 15 minutes for an eastbound bus.  Success!

We made it to the Field Museum and were greeted by Sue, pretty impressive.  We went to the special exhibit and were shrunk down to less than an inch tall!  Then we explored life in the dirt, fun fun!  And if you'll believe it, we had lunch at McDonald's.  In our defense, it was IN the Field Museum and we didn't eat breakfast!

We're scared of Sue!

Yep, McDonald's!

Eric wants these in the living room.

This is the line that we got to cut!

These guys were holding tails!

It was fuzzy, like algae.  There was another one that I pet
that was hard and rocky feeling.

Next we went to the Shedd Aquarium and our Go Chicago cards let us skip to the Will Call line, bypassing at least 100 people in line.  Now, this "skip the line" bonus led us to a 40 minute wait in the Will Call line, lame.  We saw some pretty cool fish and turtles, I got to pet some startfish, we watched an Addy-like penguin play with a basketball, and witnessed dolphins peeing in the water.

When we were done there we trotted over to the Adler Planetarium.  There we had a lot of fun with a huge microscope zooming in on the details of our wedding rings, a cut of Eric's, a scar of mine, and some of my many moles - it was crazy!  Eric also flew a rocket simulator before we went off to our 2 star shows.  The first one was about constellations, and the second was about the formation and history of the stars and universe.

My blue topaz

            

          My ruby

 My diamond

 

Eric's ring

 Eric flying

We then, skillfully, bussed over to Navy Pier and caught an Architecture River Tour Cruise and learned lots about Chicago.  There is a building that looks like a flask, there is a fountain that shoots across the river for 10 minutes at the start of every hour.  Many buildings were built under an ordinance that only 1/4 of the building can be the full height and the rest must be below a certain height, in order to allow "sunlight and air to reach the city streets."  That ordinance is no longer in effect though.  Also, many of the buildings have tributes to the city through things such as green windows to reflect the river, curves to imitate the curve of the river, and circle vents that look like boat portholes.  Chicago houses the largest building in the world, the merchandise market, which is 2 city blocks big.  They also have the most moveable bridges in one city - they once had over 50 and now have 36 operational.  We also learned that the rivers water is very polluted and that they reversed the flow of the river so it wouldn't pollute Lake Michigan, instead it heads to St. Louis!  Recently it has improved from "toxic" to "very hazardous."  Last year the Willis company bought 3% of the office space in the Sears tower, and this entitled them to change the name to the Willis tower, and Chicago in turn hates them for it.

The flask building

Our cruise ship

Mirrors on the pier

Kiss on the end of the pier

This is my imitation of the grumpy face!

A place for boats to dock looks like a grumpy face...

When we got off of the tour, we walked Navy Pier for awhile and then bussed, trained, walked, trained, and walked some more in search for Chinese food - but everything closes at 7pm!  We ended up at Gino's and had some amazing toasted ravioli and barbecue chicken pizza.

Now, once again, off to sleep before another adventurous day!