Eric had a meeting scheduled in Chicago the last Friday in September, and when I found out about this, I jumped at the opportunity to go with him and make it a weekend getaway for us! We've been together before, but it was 5+ years ago. We LOVED it then, so we were both excited to get back and explore the city.
We headed out Thursday afternoon, and we got there just in time to enjoy an hour-long cab ride during rush hour to our hotel downtown. :/ We were hungry and ready for dinner, so we walked just a few blocks to a place called Lou Malnati's to get some pizza. Eric of course went with the Chicago style deep dish, and I had thin crust. It was so yummy!
Friday morning Eric had his meeting and I enjoyed some shopping and lunch on my own. We met up mid-afternoon to do some sight seeing. We started out on the double decker bus that does the loop with a tour guide. Definitely a good decision that we did that first because it helped us get our bearings as to where things were and what we wanted to see. We also had a hilarious tour guide that made it a fun little trip. That evening we found a fun little pub called Public House. Great food and tons of beers on tap, which made my hubby really happy. :)
Some pictures of the city from our bus.
Clark Street Bridge
Amazing building! The shape of the balconies make the shape of the building ever changing as you drive underneath it
Chicago Tribune Building
View of the city from the south
Saturday we got up early and headed out for a run. The weather was amazing the whole weekend, and especially nice in the mornings. Our hotel was in a great location right on the river, so we were easily able to walk down to Millennium Park for a quick look at The Bean sans crowd and then over to the lake shore for the most enjoyable 4 mile run I've ever taken. Perfect weather and awesome views!
Crazy view from underneath
After we got cleaned up, we headed out to see more sights.
First stop, the Skydeck at Willis (Sears) Tower.
Quite a view of the city and the lake.
I was nervous and shaking when I stepped out onto the Skydeck, trying not to look down. I actually had to crawl off of it, HA!
Now I'm not even scared of heights, but this was definitely unsettling. The only thing between us and the street is 1 inch of plexiglass and 103 floors! :-/
From there, more exploring. We walked around downtown a lot, and then did the trolley ride of the north side of Chicago where we saw Wrigley Field, Lincoln Park, and Briar Street Theater, where the Blue Man Group first started. We also went a speed boat tour down the river and learned about a lot of the buildings and history of the city, then they took us for a fun joy ride out on the lake.
Interesting jean sculpture
Tons of these guys at Millenium Park. We thought they were so fun and cute we couldn't restist taking pictures with them.
The Bean, mid-afternoon. A much different sight than earlier that day!
Can you find us? It's like playing Where's Waldo with that many people around!
Amphitheater at Millennium Park
Just a little windy....
I had to steal Eric's hat to protect my hair from all that wind and water :)
Sunday we took the trolley to the south side where we saw lots of neat parks, the whole University of Chicago campus, President Obama's residence, and lots of other interesting landmarks.
On the trolley!
Amazing shot of Buckingham Fountain
They were filming Transformers 4 the whole weekend, and we kept stumbling upon areas where they were shooting. This time, they had the streets shut down near Millennium Park, and had stunt men driving the cars up and down the streets. It was pretty interesting to watch. The orange car parked on the left and the black car driving, we think, are different variations of "Bumblebee"
Fun digital screen fountains.....
....that also happen to spit water out at you!
Such a beautiful city!!
We had such a great trip. I can safely say that Chicago is by far my favorite big city I've traveled to! I love it so much, and I can't wait to go back!!
