15 Windy Years

Matt and I seized the opportunity to celebrate our 15th anniversary last week.  Everything lined up perfectly for us to take a special trip.  I was able to get away from work (no theater camp last week), Karson was heading to Taylor Christian Camp with the group from Greenwood Park, and mom offered to take the boys to Destin with her and the Maglinger clan.  Matt and I have really been wanting to take a trip to Chicago.  You would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't like Chicago - I've heard nothing but wonderfulness (is that a word?) about the place.  We took off last Sunday night after dropping Karson off at church camp.  We didn't make it very far taking off that late but managed to get close to Indianapolis before settling in for the night at a Marriott.  I have had a gift certificate to Marriott for about two years now and finally was able to use it.  We took off early the next morning and decide to make a pit stop in Indianapolis. Isaac has developed a deep love for the Indiana Pacers NBA basketball team.  I'm not entirely sure where this love affair started, but we knew we needed to drop by Bankers Life Fieldhouse to visit the fan shop and make some purchases.  We got the boys some basketballs, pencils and a Paul George pin-up.  Matt texted Isaac and told him that we'd gone there to which Isaac responded "get me the starting line-ups autographs only."  What a character!

Indianapolis is a neat place to visit. Even though we were there for a short amount of time, there were some cool sites in the downtown area like this Soldiers' and Sailors' monument - a tribute to the soldiers who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

One of the views from our hotel window

We arrived in the windy city a little after noon on Monday and were able to check into our hotel.  Matt found us a wonderful place through hotwire called the Blackstone Renaissance.  Our room was on the 19th floor (1920).  It was high but one of the best views aside from the ocean =).  In downtown Chicago, free parking is unheard of.  Either you bite the bullet and pay a small fortune to house your car at your hotel, or you can find another garage for half the price right around the corner.  It's a no-brainer - we paid about $60 to park our car for three days in a garage.  I wanted to make the most out of every single second of our visit.  After settling everything in our hotel, getting our car parked, we took off to The Field Museum which was nearby.  We arrived about two hours before the museum closed and decided we'd give it a go.  Matt and I can move quite quickly through exhibits and felt confident we could see most everything in that amount of time.

The Blackstone Renaissance is designated as a Chicago Landmark. It has been dubbed "The Hotel of Presidents" and was once considered one of Chicago's finest luxury hotels, and a dozen 20th-century US Presidents have stayed at the hotel. In addition, the Blackstone has also become part of Chicago's history as the city that has hosted more United States presidential nominating conventions than any other two American cities.

The highlight of the museum - The world-famous fossil known as “Sue” is the largest, best-preserved, and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. Sue measures 42 feet long from snout to tail and 13 feet tall at the hip. She boasts 58 dagger-like teeth and cuts a fine figure as the Museum’s most popular backdrop for visitor photos. A replica skull crowns the skeleton in Stanley Field Hall, while Sue’s original skull, which weighs 600 pounds, rests within an exhibition on the Museum’s balcony, under a mural depicting this majestic creature in the flesh.

 We perused most of the exhibits and were ready to go right around two hours.  If you like stuffed animals, ancient pottery and artifact collections, loads of reading, than this is the place for you. Natural history is certainly interesting, but I think exhaustion from our trip made the visit less appealing to me.  I'm glad we went though, and I know the kids would've enjoyed it.

The museum was short walk from our hotel, and by the time we finished at The Field, we were ready to go back and get cleaned up for dinner.

The headless and armless iron sculptures in Grant Park right across the street from our hotel are called Agora.

At the recommendation of our hotel concierge, we ate dinner at a little Thai resturant called Tamarind right around the corner.  The appetizers were uh-mazing. Matt liked his meal, but I didn't care for mine.  I probably should've tried the sushi because it looked delicious.  While we were there, we eavesdropped in on a conversation about The Second City.  Some people at the table across from ours were talking about getting tickets to the Tuesday night show.  I hadn't heard of Second City, but Matt had and said we should definitely try to go.  The Tuesday night show was sold out on-line, but we were able to grab some seats for the Wednesday night show. We ended up trapped in the restaurant because of a downpour.  After about twenty minutes, the rain let up, and we made a run for our hotel.

We ate breakfast Tuesday morning at Yolk.

Tuesday we were full blown tourists.  We purchased tickets for the Chicago Trolley and Double Decker Tour which is essentially a hop on and hop off kind of tour hitting different points all over the city.  It's $30 to ride the bus for one day and $43 to ride the bus for three days.  Again, a no-brainer as we didn't want to pay for taxi cabs and the L-train to get everywhere.  Plus, I wanted the FULL Chicago experience.

Just a tourist waiting for the bus outside the Hilton Hotel next door.

Here we are - just a couple of tourists, on a trolley, in Chicago, taking pictures of lots of buildings. Sight seeing highlights included: Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park (one of the largest fountains in the world and highlighted in the TV show "Married With Children"), Soldier Field which was recently renovated and now holds less people and looks like a giant UFO landed on it, Adler Planetarium, Columbia Yacht Club, the river walk and  Navy Pier.  We got to see Trump Tower which is a source of contention in the city because of it's pretentiousness.  Coming in as the 2nd largest building in Chicago, Trump wanted to build a structure larger than the Willis Tower a few years back.  However, shortly after 9/11, he was asked by the city to scale it down and revise his building plans for fear something could happen in Chicago. Trump now has the #2 largest building in downtown Chicago, showcasing  his name on the front of it, not modestly placed but large and boisterous (shocker).

There was a lot of discussion on the tour about the great Chicago fire of 1871 when the city was almost constructed entirely of wood - 57 miles of wood-paved streets, 561 miles of wooden sidewalks and many structures were made of wood or wood trimmed.  The exact particulars surrounding the fire are unknown - beginning on a Sunday night and not being put out until rainfall on Tuesday, the entire city was ruined.  In the West division of the city, around 18,000 building and $200 million in property were destroyed. In the North, 13,300 buildings - fatalities totaled around 200-300.  Much of the debris from the fire was filled in the lagoon and area surrounding Grant Park, Navy Pier - pretty much the entire area to right of Michigan Avenue to the harbor.

The Chicago river also became highly polluted with landfill refuse and debris - dead animals, chemicals and other nasty waste was dumped into it.  This created  lots of problems and the early 1900's - through the years that disposal have become major dangers to public health and safety.  Major clean-up efforts have taken place to and in recent years, their have been re engineering efforts that reversed the flow of the Chicago river and Lake Michigan, which is the main source of drinking water. Our tour guide told us that drinking the tap water is now healthier than buying bottled water.

Here's another tour guide story that I enjoyed about Streeterville

With our three day excursion, we received a coupon booklet full of freebies including free chocolate at the Hershey store.  Note to self: if you receive a coupon for free chocolate, do not pick it up at the beginning of the day in the middle of summer.  To date, this is my favorite novelty store, and it pulled at my heartstrings knowing the kids would've loved it.
  Matt and I spent most of Monday either riding a tour bus or on Michigan Avenue browsing the stores.  We were able to view the exhibitions at the Museum for Contemporary Art for free - Illinois residents receive free admission on Tuesdays, but they made an allowance for us =).  http://mcachicago.org/  What a treat!  Matt and I certainly aren't schooled in the area of arts but certainly appreciate it =).  After, we walked over to the Water Place and did some shopping, not really - more looking than shopping and snagged some free popcorn from Garrett's with another coupon.

Our trolley guide told us there are three foods you must eat when visiting Chicago: the Italian Beef sandwich, the Chicago hot dog and the deep dish pizza.  We ate at Portillo's for lunch - Matt got the Italian Beef and I got a chili dog, not quite the Chicago hot dog, but it sounded good and was.  Matt liked the Italian Beef okay - soggy bread isn't his thing.

Portillo's was right across the street from a flagship McDonald's, also known as the Rock-n-Roll McDonald's - one of the most famous locations in the world.

After eating, we rode the tour bus over to Millennium park and got our picture made with the famous Chicago Bean.  This is probably the largest tourist attraction in Chicago or at least it was the day we were there - people were everywhere.  One cool part of our tour included Chicago's Gold Coast which is the most affluent area in downtown - mansions and high rise apartments. We got to see Oprah's condo which was recently sold and the original Playboy Mansion along with the Archbishop's residence.  The stores are all high end (Tom Ford, Vera Wang, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, etc)  -- essentially if you have to ask how much something costs, you are in the wrong place =).

I had to take a picture of the Joffrey School of Ballet since Karson and I are familiar with it from Dance Moms.

Wrigley Field on our North City tour - the field was recently purchased and renovations are currently in the works which is causing some legal issues with deals made with rooftop seat owners across the street from the field.  The new owners want to erect advertising signs and jumbo trons which will block the current views.  The picture above is most likely the last time Wrigley field will look the way it does.

We also took the South tour on on Tuesday - like I said we were full blown tourists.  The South tour was long and not very interesting aside from seeing Barack Obama's house which was being guarded by the secret service.  I kind of wish we'd skipped it all together. We were craving some PF Chang's for dinner and headed back to our hotel to relax for a bit.  We took the L-train to Chang's and enjoyed some Kung Pao Shrimp and Chang's Spicy Chicken.

We decided to eat at Panera Bread on Wednesday morning and take the bus over to Navy Pier.

We loved looking through all the novelty shops at the Pier.  Because Chicago is chilly most of the year, they make the most of their beautiful weather by doing construction projects.  Navy Pier is in the process of being renovated so we didn't get the whole scope of the place while we were there but...

saw the most beautiful view of the city and Lake Michigan!

 I was ready for deep dish pizza for lunch, and we walked about four blocks to Giardano's.  When you arrive, you place your order off the menu because it takes one hour for them to cook your pizza.  Hands down, the best pizza I have ever eaten in my life.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  Thank goodness you can order them online - may have to do that for a special occasion or two.

Thursday night was a treat because we got to see the famous Second City - sketch comedy and improv.  This theatre has a reputation or developing some of the finest comedic acts known including Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Mike Meyers.  We got the privileged of seeing the fine people list below in "Depraved New World".  It was entertaining, and we had lots of laughs that night (and maybe saw the next big star of SNL???).

Our Second City seats were super close to the stage. Seating was tight, up close and personal.  What a treat!

Our last day in Chicago we headed over to the Corner Bakery for breakfast.  Delicious!  I cashed in another freebie from our bus - if you took a picture of the back of the tour bus seats, you got a free sweet treat which happened to be the most yummy iced blueberry cake/muffin thing.  Awesome!  We did a little more shopping before heading back home.  I had super high expectations of Chicago based on many opinions, and the city lived up to every single one of them.  I cannot WAIT to return!  Thanks Windy City for the memories!