Draw Bridge Excitement

On our last day we planned to do a boat tour from the Pier. We wanted to do it the night before, but it was cloudy and so we thought we would wait and do it the next day. Well it was raining and so we didn't really want to spend the money to ride a boat in the rain. I had the great idea to find the Oprah Store. The tour had some really fun coupons where we could get free samples from different places and they also had one where if you bought something from the Oprah Store you would get a free gift. I was intrigued. It was a little adventure getting there as it wasn't close to downtown and the street wasn't on the little map we used the whole time. We finally found it. I was so disappointed in the merchandise as EVERYTHING had the letter O or her whole name on it. I enjoy Oprah, but not so much that I needed something with her stamp on it. The only things that didn't have her name were things from Africa. What was in my price range, Jamie had just brought me a month before. But I still was determined to get my free gift. I finally settled on some notecards that we in the shape of an O, but could totally pass for just being oval shaped. And my free gift was just a pen. But it has a highlighter!

Down the block was her studio. We got to see the garage with at least 15 black Mercedes. I found it interesting that the flowers in front of this sign are all plastic.

At this point of our day we are just wandering around. The rain has picked up and so we go back for me to get my umbrella. We go back and eat at a restaurant that was recommended to us. I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to just sit inside somewhere out of the rain and wait until is time to go the airport! As we are walking we hear the bells that sound like a train crossing. We realized that it was the draw bridge going up. I was so excited!

This bridge is a double bridge if you can tell.

All of this waiting just for 3 sailboats.

We were about to turn around and head back when we realized we could see the next bridge go up. So we stood around and watched that too! It took forever for all of the traffic to clear off the bridge.

More waiting! I'm easily amused but I found watching the bridges so exciting. You definitely don't see that here in Oklahoma!

The rain and cold was getting old and so we decided to just head to the airport a little early. We made it to our flight in plenty of time! :)

We loved Chicago! Even though we were busy the whole time it still was relaxing as we were on our own time schedule. It was such a treat!

Chicago Tour

We spent this day mostly on a guided tour of the city. We rode around on the top of a double decker bus (getting windblown). There were stops all over the city and you could get on and off as you pleased. They also included 3 other smaller tours more away from downtown that you could do as well. Of course there was no way that you could have time for all of them. We found all the little tid-bits about the city so interesting. We saw a lot on this day, so this post is very picture heavy. I didn't know which ones to leave out. So I put them in...for you mom! :)

Going under bridges felt like a close call. The day started out sunny and beautiful.

We rode a little on historic Route 66.
The architecture was so neat!

We ended up not making it to a baseball game. But this tour company had a trolley that went out by Wrigley Field. So we took that for a little bit so I could see it.

By now it was freezing and we had to go back to the hotel to get my sweatshirt that I had to buy when we got there. We never expected some of the days to never make it out of the low 70's.

We got back on the double decker. I loved this building. It is one of the newer ones and is meant to look like ripples of water when you look up at it.


This is the Trump Tower. It isn't finished yet.

The buildings are so tall on this street that it only gets 2 hours of direct sunlight every day.

Another skyline view as we drove along the lake.

Then we inched along in traffic.

Another fountain...I think it was famous. :)

This is the centennial fountain. It shoots water at the top of every hour.

We had been to the Navy Pier several times, but we had not walked all the way down it yet.

Clearly I can't get enough of the skyline.

We went up in the Sears Tower during the day and so we wanted to go up into the John Hancock Building at night. This is looking down on the Pier and you can see the Ferris wheel lit up.

Beautiful!

Whew! One day left.

Comments

A couple people have told me they were unable to leave comments. I clicked a few things having no idea what I was really doing (a little nervous because last time I lost all my settings) but I think it should work now. So please leave comments!

On another note I won the customized invitations from the free giveaway that I posted about the other day. Woo-hoo! Now what party am I going to throw? :)

American Food and American Girl

I wanted to get a hot dog while here, and it was so fun. My favorite thing about the Chicago style is the whole pickle spear. I have always put pickle slices on my hot dogs, but it never occurred to me that I could put a whole spear. I didn't want one with all of the peppers and onions, and I learned quickly that you not supposed to put ketchup on your hot dog. The hot dog guy didn't give me a very nice look when I mentioned it.

This was no fat-free hot dog and worth every calorie!

We ate at a little park outside the Field Museum. It is a natural history museum with some really fascinating exhibits. But there was so much to see!

We also went through a pirates exhibit. Arrrg! I think he is too nice to ever be a pirate! :)

Our lunch destination

All the tables faced this wall. It was kind of like stadium seating. The bottom row had recliners. The middle had tables, and the back row had horseshoe shaped booths. There were 6 more screens on the other side. At your table you pressed a button for which screen you wanted the audio from. Despite the decor, their food was really good! (On another ESPN side note: at our hotel, we didn't have a huge selection of channels. But there were 5 different ESPN channels. Who knew there could be that many? What a waste of channel space!)

The lunch choice was for Raymond, but this next place was totally for me. We set out to find the 2nd biggest attraction in Chicago (according to a tour guide), the American Girl Place. This was one place I knew I wanted to go before we even got here. And as soon as we got here, I was thrilled!

Each doll had a special case/scene with everything laid out. When Jamie and I got our dolls there were only 3. Now there are tons. What a sweet day it was when Santa brought me Kirsten. I loved looking at all of her things. It is so much better than through the catalog like we would always do.

Here are all of her outfits. Raymond choked when he saw the prices. Lucky for him, his little girl already will have the doll and he only has to worry about buying the accessories! :)

Great Views from Up High

This is the view from our hotel room. The tallest building is the John Hancock Building. Our room kind of curved and so if you looked to the right and you could see a sliver of the Navy Pier. We were just a few blocks from it and 2 blocks from Michigan Avenue. Our hotel location was great!

This is what you see if you looked down. It was a little cool for me to go swimming, but a lot of people did.

We hopped on the bus for the first time ready to navigate the streets of Chicago. It really was one of my favorite things about this trip. I loved reading the map to figure out where we needed to go! :)
The building formally known as the Sears Tower. (I don't remember its new name.)

Chicago was super crowded over the weekend. It definitely cleared out during the week. It seemed like we weren't the only ones that wanted to go up either. The entrance was all the way around on the other side of the building. It really went faster than we thought it would though.

I'm in love with the views in this city!

Harrison loved them too!

We went up a little higher to the 1o4th floor for an even better view!



Just a few days before we came, the Sears Tower opened these balconies that were glass all the way around. It was such a strange sensation once stepping onto them. It was a really cool view though.

We got on our knees so the camera could get the bottom of the balcony. It was packed with people and so there wasn't much room. We laughed at how we look like little people though.

After lunch and shopping we said goodbye to Raymond's family. It was such a fun time to spend with them! We were close to Millennium Park and so headed that way to explore. There are some interesting "art" pieces!

This is called "The Bean". Its neat how you can see the skyline reflection.

We had a little fun with our reflection!
We are standing under the bean and looking up.

Raymond's family went to Taste of Chicago the night before we got into town. It's set up similar to the Arts Festival (just food though). They had some food tickets that they didn't get a chance to use and were nice enough to give them to us. We decided to go there to grab dinner. When we got there, we didn't realize that it was closing in 15 minutes. It was crazy packed with people. Luckily we were able to get something to eat but not with out being knocked around a little weaving through the crowds!

It was cheaper to buy a family pack of tickets for the Ferris wheel the day before, so we had some extras. We went back to ride the swings. It was a great way to end another great day!