Last Wednesday, I took my first commercial flight ever! We flew into Chicago for a mini vacation and for my brother-in-law's wedding. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous about the flight, but after we were up and going for a bit, things were good. The flight home was even easier, except the landing was a bit rougher.
Anyways, this will have to be part one of our long weekend. I will share the wedding the next time I post and you won't want to miss it as it was beautiful!
When we found out that Andrew's wedding would be taking place near Chicago we decided that we wanted to take time to visit the city. Mollie and Chad wanted to do the same and it was so much fun touring the city with them!
Here is a little synopsis of our two days in Chicago!
We arrived Wednesday morning around 8am (Central Time) and had to rent a car and get our stuff to our hotel. We then proceeded out to look around and by 10:30 we were all ready for lunch... remember that is 11:30 our time and we'd all been up since about 4am that morning. Well, we had to wait a bit for places to open so a couple of us ate a granola bar and then we split a 6 pack of crackers b/t the 4 of us. We finally made it to Gino's, a place known for it's deep dish pizza. We were the first in line and it was so very good!
Day 1 in pictures:
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| Strolling down the streets of Chicago... bringing back the "jacket/sweater tied around the waist" look. |
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| First in line for our Chicago style pizza! |
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After lunch we headed back to the hotel and we all ended up taking naps
which worked out great since it was so hot outside. Later that day we
saw what is referred to as "The Bean". It's a pretty neat piece of art
that is shaped like a bean and you can see yourself as well as the
skyline in it.
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| "The Bean" |
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| Chicago skyline |
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| The four of us! |
We had a scheduled boat tour of Chicago that evening and
decided to wait until afterwards to grab supper. The boat tour was probably my favorite thing and a great way to learn about the city without walking everywhere, though we did our fair share of walking and maybe yours too!
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| A view from our boat tour. |
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| Another view from the boat. |
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| A glimpse of Navy Pier and the farris wheel while on the boat. |
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| Our wonderful travel buddies - Mollie and Chad! |
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| Navy Pier at night |
Thursday morning we got up and hit up Panera Bread for breakfast and then went out to tour more of the city. We got to see these two water fountains that had face images come up on them and then "spit" out the water. The pictures explain better!
For lunch we had to get hot dogs since Chicago is known for them and
went to a place called "American Dogs". We enjoyed lunch and later got
some popcorn that we weren't all that impressed with.
Thursday afternoon I could tell William really wanted to go up in
the Sears Tower but he kept claiming he didn't b/c of the cost. I told
him he'd regret it if we didn't and so we left Mollie and Chad to tour
the parks and gardens in the 105 degree heat. Sears Tower ended up
being William's favorite part of Chicago so I'm glad we went.
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| A view from the top of the Sear's Tower |
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| Willie in the glass box that sticks out over the city! |
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| I did NOT want to do this, but I'm glad I did. Just can't look down! |
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| Looking up at Sears Tower |
Later that afternoon we wanted to go down Navy Pier which led to
following Chad around aimlessly for quite a while. We eventually got
there though and decided it was best to take the free trolley back to
the hotel!
That evening we decided we had to have pizza just one more time so we ate at another pizza place which was really good too! We came to the conclusion that they must put at least a pound of cheese on each pizza.
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| On our "walking tour" of the entire city curiosity of Chad! |
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| Pretty sure this road might have led to nowhere... |
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| Saw a fire boat headed all geared up and off to something |
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| Finally made it to the pier... a view looking back to the city. |
We had a great trip in Chicago and I enjoyed spending some time with Mollie and Chad (and William of course)! We will have to go on another trip and maybe next time Andrew and Sarah can join us! However, I'm not sure we can find a hotel room big enough for three couples... yep, we are so cheap we shared one room!
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| Mollie calculated how much we owe her I'm sure! |
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| Worn out from a long two days of walking Chicago! |
