Sunday, May 27, 2018  

After a decent night’s sleep, we awoke this morning feeling recharged and ready for another exciting day of exploring Chicago!  Our first mission of the day was to get to the ticket booth for the architecture river tour as early as possible.  This boat tour was one of our must-do activities, but since we wanted it to be one of the attractions on our City Pass, we could not buy tickets in advance.  Instead, we had to wait for the day of the tour and redeem the City Pass voucher for a specific tour time based on availability.  This tour is very popular and we saw many boat tours on Friday and Saturday with so many people crammed onto the boat that they must have been sold out.  My original plan was to take the tour mid day so the sun would be shining straight down and I would be able to take good photos of the buildings from every direction.  Given the extreme heat this weekend, I adjusted my plans and hoped to take the earliest tour possible because there is no shade on these boats and we didn’t want to bake in the sun for 75 minutes at the hottest part of the day!

After DH made some coffee in a to-go cup from the fancy machine in the hotel lounge, we left the hotel around 8am to make the one mile walk to the Riverwalk.  The boat tour has 2 ticket offices.  One is at Navy Pier, but since that is such a hub of tourism, it tends to be more crowded and tickets sell out faster.  The other location is at Michigan Avenue down on the level of the Riverwalk, and not only is this the location that the company recommends people use because it is less crowded, but it is also about a half mile closer to our hotel so it was our preferred location anyway!  On the way there, we walked passed this building, which I thought looked exactly like the Grace Building in Manhattan, but according to Wikipedia, there is no connection.

When we got to the river, it took a few minutes to find the ticket office for Shoreline tours.  It was located on the north side of the river, just passed the new Apple store.  They don’t open until 9am, but when we arrived at 8:30, there were already 3 or 4 couples online ahead of us.  Perhaps because it was a holiday weekend, or just because they felt like being nice, the employees opened the ticket window early and we only had to wait a few minutes after arriving.  The lady scanned our City Passes and gave us tickets for the 10am River boat tour, which was their first tour of the day.  

We had over an hour of spare time, so we walked back up to Michigan  Avenue and over to the Corner Bakery Café for breakfast.  This was a great find, and we were really happy that they were opened today because it is in the lobby of an office building and all of the restaurants like this near our hotel are closed on the weekends.  DH ordered huevos rancheros and I got the egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.  Both were very tasty and it was nice to have a warm, filling breakfast seated indoors with air conditioning.

When we were done eating, it was only 9:30 but we had nothing better to do so we went back to the Shoreline ticket booth to get in line for our tour.  One of the employees directed us to where a line was already forming for our boat tour, so it’s a good thing we arrived somewhat early!  It was a little bit chaotic at first because there was also a line for the 9:45am tour, but that tour is in Spanish.  This was the boat they used for the Spanish tour, so you can see it is smaller than the boat we will use for the tour in English.

After they boarded the 9:45am tour, this boat pulled up to the dock, and this was the boat for our tour.  

As you can see, there is hardly any shade on the boat.  The idea is that you can look up at the buildings and see what the guide is describing as the boat sails down the river.  The big white structure at the back of the boat is the bathrooms and the bar area.  We immediately eyed the seats in the last 2 rows and noted that they were in the shade from the bar.  Of course, once the boat turns around and goes in a different direction, that shade will disappear, but we wanted to get a seat back there so at least we could have a few minutes of shade.

The boarding process takes a few minutes because they try to take photos of each party to sell as a souvenir after the tour.  When we finally got down the stairs and onto the boat, there were 2 seats left in the back row on the left side, so we quickly walked over and sat down before someone else got there first!  Yay! While it was only 10am, it was already very hot and humid, so any little bit of shade was appreciated!!  It took about 20 minutes for everyone to get on the boat and find a seat.  Each of these benches holds 6 people and the tour was sold out, so we really had to squeeze to let everyone find a spot.  

All of those people up on the sidewalk are waiting to board the boat.

The tour started a few minutes after 10am, and there was a guide narrating over a microphone at the front of the boat.  Because there are so many buildings very close together at this section of the river, he had to speak quite fast and it was hard to keep up. We had already learned about several of these buildings on our walking tour on Friday night, so at least it wasn’t our first time hearing the information, but it was still a little hard to understand him at first.  Luckily, the tour got better as the buildings spread out more, further down the river.

Here is just a sampling of the photos that I took on the tour…

These 2 buildings are the Marina Towers.  When they were first built, it was meant to be a place where you could live and find all of your necessities close by.  It had a supermarket, a shopping mall, a movie theater, and a bowling alley, all on the same property as the towers.  Often called the Corn Cob building for its unique shape, the bottom 10 stories of each tower are the parking garage, and then the upper floors are all condominiums.  

The parking garage spirals all the way down and they require mandatory valet parking so that no one gets into an accident!  Notice how all of the cars are perfectly backed into their spots, and there are just 3 thin wires as protection against the cars falling over the edge?  I can only imaging how nervous those valet parking attendants must be on their first day of work!!

Looking up through the grates of one of the bridges

This gigantic building is Merchandise Mart.  When it was opened in 1930, it was the largest building in the world, with 4 million square feet of floor space.  The building originally housed Chicago’s architectural and interior design vendors, but later expanded to other industries as well.  Merchandise Mart is so large that, until 2008, it had its own zip code!

I really liked how so many of the skyscrapers had mirrored glass windows to reflect the city skyline.

This building is 150 North Riverside Plaza, and it was built to look upside down, but it also accomplished something very functional.  Notice how narrow the building is at its base?  As required by the city of Chicago for any new building, the developer was required to set aside part of the lot size for public park space. The building’s footprint encompasses just 25 percent of the lot, and the remaining 75 percent of the project site is reserved for a public park, amphitheater, and the Riverwalk.  The site is built with air rights over tracks that carry Metro and Amtrak trains into Chicago Union Station.

The boat turned right to head up the north fork of the river, but because this is a residential area, the guide was not permitted to talk on the microphone at that time.  We only went a short distance though, and then made a U-turn to head down towards the south fork of the river, which eventually feeds into the Mississippi River.

More beautiful reflections off the Nuveen building

This building figured out a clever way to provide more “corner” offices.  This zig-zag structure to the outer corners of the building allows for 4 highly-desired corner offices where there would normally be just one.

This building features a map of the Chicago River, and the red rectangle shows where the building is located.

Making a U-Turn again to head back towards the main branch of the river.  From here, we had a nice view of the Willis Tower.

This interesting building is often known as the Morse Code building

A better view of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower)

I am always drawn to geometric shapes and buildings, so this perfect grid with bright white walls against the black mirrors caught my eye

A better view of Merchandise Mart as we turned back up the main branch of the Chicago River

Tribune Tower, former home to the Chicago Tribune but it was recently sold to be converted into condos.

The Tribune Tower is known for it’s gothic-inspired architecture

A daytime shot of the NBC Tower (I had another photo of it during our walking tour on Friday night)

Remember how our walking tour on Friday ended at the Centennial Fountain where we saw the water shooting across the river?  Well we saw it again today, but this time we were on one of the boats who had to wait until the water stopped so we could finish our tour!

A daytime photo of Lake Point Tower, aka: The Giant Fidget Spinner!

View of Navy Pier from the water

The boat had to make one final U-turn here or we would end up out in Lake Michigan. As we turned around, we were treated to a beautiful panoramic view of the whole city skyline, which made for a wonderful way to end the tour!

The triangle-shaped building on the left was designed to maximize how many condos had views of the Chicago River.  Behind that is Aqua, a condo building where Lady Gaga once lived, which features wave-like balconies that are shaped differently on each floor.

The architecture boat tour ended about 10 minutes late at 11:25, likely due to the delay with getting everyone on the boat at the start of the tour. We had nothing specific on the agenda for the rest of the day, aside from wanting to get Chicago-style hot dogs for lunch.  Aram, our guide from the walking tour on Friday, had mentioned that there is a bar Trump Tower which offers great views of the river.  It is located on the rooftop of the lowest tier of the building on the 16^th floor, so it’s not at the very top of the building or anything crazy like that!  Since our boat tour ended just a few blocks from Trump Tower, we decided to walk over and check it out. We didn’t really plan to buy drinks there considering it wasn’t even 12 noon yet, but we wanted to go upstairs to see the views, and then discretely get back in the elevators to leave.  

Walking into the main lobby of Trump Tower, there were signs directing us to the elevator for the 16^th floor, but when we pushed the button, nothing happened!  It turns out that they open at noon, so the elevator access is shut off until they are officially opened each day.  That was fine with us though, and we enjoyed the opportunity to relax on a couch in the lobby and soak up all of the air conditioning we could!  When the bar finally opened at noon, we went upstairs and were treated to beautiful views, as promised!

Looks like the next boat tour is loaded up and ready to go!

A better view of the details on the roof of the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower

 The outdoor space wraps around the building so you can see the views in nearly every direction

We were starting to get hungry, so we left Trump Tower in search of lunch.  Like I mentioned, we wanted Chicago-style hot dogs for lunch today.  Portillo’s is one of the top-rated places for that, and it was about a mile walk from where the river tour ended, so we decided to walk over there for lunch.  The building is really old and you can tell there is a lot of history here.

Inside, it was extremely chaotic!  You order at one counter and wait at a
different counter for them to call your order number when your food is
ready.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Not quite, because there were hundreds of people who also wanted a hot dog for lunch today!!

This photo was actually taken after we finished eating and the line had died down a bit.  When we first arrived, we entered through the front door which is on the far left side below the giant clock and the line went nearly to the door.  We had no idea what the process was, but the employee in the white shirt with a black hat was very helpful and explained how things worked.  I waited on line to order our food while DH went to scout out a table. There were actually 3 lines because each register had its own line, but it still moved very slowly.  When I finally got to the front of the line, I ordered DH a jumbo hot dog with everything on it, including mustard, relish, onion, tomato, pickles, celery salt, and sport peppers.  I guess I am too picky because the only topping I wanted was pickles (which I planned to remove and eat separately lol), and I also got an order of cheese fries for us to share.

After that, I waited about 15 minutes at the other counter for our order to be called.  You know how most places like this just call the number of a loud speaker?  Well things are a bit more fun here as the guy calling the numbers would make a rhyme for every order.  “Number 5, look alive!”  “Number 22, this food’s for you!”  While it was clever and gave the restaurant a lot of personality, it made it really hard to hear your number called because you had to listen for the number between all those words, which isn’t easy to do in a room this loud!  

When he finally called for our order, I grabbed the food and went over to the condiments station for ketchup.  Notice how they don’t serve ketchup as an option on the hot dogs?  You have to get it for yourself because they don’t usually put ketchup on hot dogs in Chicago.  I totally forgot to take a photo of DH’s hot dog because we were both so flustered from this whole experience that I didn’t think to take out my camera until we were nearly done eating.  The hot dogs were really good though, and the cheese for our fries was in a container on the side so I could also spread some on my hot dog to make it into a cheese dog! Overall, we enjoyed our experience at Portillo’s, but I think we would have liked it more if it wasn’t so hectic and crowded!

By the time we finished lunch, it was nearly 2pm so we walked the one mile walk back to our hotel.  It’s a good thing that Chicago is such a flat city because we really did a lot of walking while we were here!  On the way, we passed an interested sculpture which we later learned was designed by Pablo Picasso.

Back at the hotel, we quickly took showers and got changed for the evening.  Tonight was the night when we had tickets to the Cubs game, and we wanted to get there early to have time to check out the neighborhood around Wrigley Field, and to enter the stadium when it opened at around 5pm so have time to walk around and buy dinner before the game started.  

Wrigley Field is conveniently located one block from the red line on the L train, so we left our hotel and walked 2 blocks to our nearest red line stop.  Even though it was before 4pm and the game didn’t start until 7pm, there were already lots of people on the train wearing Cubs gear and who were going up to the stadium early.  Luckily, we got on the train pretty early in the route so we were able to get the last 2 seats in our train car, but not long after that, it was extremely crowded with no spade for anyone else to squeeze in our car.  The ride took about 20 minutes, and when we pulled into the Addison station, we could see Wrigley Field right there. We followed the flow of traffic out of the station and towards Clark  Street to where all the bars are located.

We made it to Wrigley Field!

The first bar we walked into was Cubby Bear, but it was very loud in there and felt more like a nighttime club than a place for an afternoon drink.  Next door, we found Vines on Clark which was more our speed.  They had a nice bar inside, but what really attracted us was the large outdoor patio with lots of tables and umbrellas for shade. Although it was crowded, it was a relaxed vibe and not too loud, and we were able to find a table in the shade.

We each ordered a beer and enjoyed the atmosphere for about half an hour until it was time to go to the game.  Walking back towards the stadium, I asked a lady to take our photo, and this is what I got…

Geez, you’d think she could have waited 3 seconds for the big police truck to get out of the way. And maybe she could put a tiny bit of effort in to centering the stadium behind us?  Some people just have zero common sense!  The stadium opened 2 hours before first pitch, so that’s when we arrived, but it was already extremely crowded with hundreds of people crammed on the sidewalk waiting to go through security.  While we waited, we noticed that not only do they hang up the flag of the opposing team, but also the flag for that team’s home state.  

The security lines moved quickly and soon enough, we were walking into the stadium.  They had a free give away at the game today so we picked up our free reusable shopping bag with the Cubs logo printed on it, then we walked around the stadium and watched batting practice.  I don’t know what the problem was tonight, but we just couldn’t get a decent photo.  This was the best of the photos we took inside Wrigley Field before the game.

We made a full loop around the outer concourse of the stadium to check out all of our food options. I thought it was fun that they had a mural depicting how the mascot has changed over the years.

I wanted another taste of that delicious Giordano’s pizza, and DH wanted another Chicago-style hot dog, so we found a vendor who sold both of those items and bought food for dinner to eat back at our seats while we watched the game.

Amazingly, this ballpark version of deep dish pizza was just as good as what we had at the restaurant last night!

 You can barely see the hot dog under all those toppings!

Our flight home tomorrow leaves at 7:50pm, which meant we needed to remember to check in during the game.  I set multiple alarms on my cell phone to make sure we didn’t forget, and we had our phones ready to go the second the clock changed to 7:50 and our check in window was opened. Despite all of that work, I got B-25 and DH got something similar.  It used to be that if you were diligent and checked in right away, you could get an A boarding zone, but we got B’s for both legs of our flight.  What a bummer!

This was one of the highest scoring games I’ve ever watched, so it was a lot of fun to see this game live. While part of me was rooting for the SF Giants because we live in the Bay Area, I couldn’t help but get excited for the home team as they were playing really well tonight.  The downside to them scoring so many runs was that this game seemed to drag on forever.  I think they were only in the 6^th inning at the 3-hour mark!  On top of that, it was extremely hot with temps over 80 degrees for the entire game and very little wind inside the stadium.  At one point, I got really overheated and needed to find a fan or something to cool me down.  Downstairs under the bleachers section, they have misters blowing cool water so I sat down near there to cool off, and felt better after a few minutes.  In the end, the Cubs won with a score of 8 to 3.  

After the game, DH wanted to check out one of the bars near the stadium for the post-game celebrations. We picked Sluggers Bar, which was located next to the bar we went to before the game.  Sluggers Bar is 2 stories.  Downstairs looks like a typical bar with a big open space for a dance floor and a DJ playing loud music.  Upstairs, the space is divided into 2 sections for a piano bar and a batting cage! This was unlike any bar we’ve ever seen and it was a lot of fun.  DH was excited to try the batting cages so he bought a token which is good for 10 pitches. There were already a lot of people on line so he picked the cage with the shortest line which was for “slow pitch” even though he would have preferred the faster pitches.  Luckily, the line moved quickly and after about 10 minutes, it was his turn to play.

After that, we went over to the section with the dueling piano bar.  They have this every Friday and Saturday night, and also after every home game, but they only have a cover charge on Saturdays so we lucked out that we were here on a Sunday night.  We have been to dueling piano bars in San Diego and Las Vegas, and we always have a great time.  This bar was no different and the piano players were a lot of fun, taking requests from the audience and singing great sing-along songs.  I was so exhausted and overheated from the game that I only anticipated staying for a few minutes, but I think we ended up staying here for close to an hour.  The other benefit to that, aside from enjoying the bar a little longer, was that it gave time for the crowds to thin out for our trip back to the hotel on the L train.  It was still fairly crowded and there were no seats available on our train car so we had to stand for the whole ride, but at least we weren’t packed in like sardines!  When we got back to the hotel, we set an alarm for 8am and went straight to sleep after another fun day in the Windy City!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 17,219 steps; 7.1 miles

Saturday, May 26, 2018

We woke up bright and early today, and when I checked my email, there was a second reply from the general manager of Big Bus Tours Chicago.  He said they would be running modified service because of today’s parade, and there would be a shuttle between stops 1 and 3, so we could get on at our normal stop at the Willis Tower at stop 3, and ride back to stop 1 to join the normal bus for the rest of the route.  That sounded too complicated and with too much room for error, so we decided to go with our alternate plans.  After going back and forth a few times about what to do about the Memorial Day Parade impacting the HOHO bus, we finally decided to use the public bus that can pick us up 2 blocks away from our hotel, and drop us off right at the Adler Planetarium. Our plan was to take that bus to the Planetarium and arrive before they open at 9:30am, and then by the time we finish at the museum in the early afternoon, hopefully the HOHO bus will be back on track and we can get on at stop #7 at the Planetarium and continue around the loop from there.  The sun was already shining bright when I peeked out the window of our hotel room!

First thing on today’s agenda was to find something to eat for breakfast.  When I booked our hotel, I knew it did not include a big breakfast buffet, but yesterday when we checked in, they told us there are granola bars and cereal available at the lounge downstairs.  I wanted something more substantial than that, so DH got some espresso in a to-go cup from the fancy self-serve machine downstairs, and we set out to find somewhere to eat.  This area of the Central Loop is made up of mostly office buildings, so while there are lots of places to grab a quick breakfast, none of them are open on the weekends!  That was really a bummer because there were a bunch of places that would have been perfect breakfast options for us, but they really cater to the business crowd and it does make sense for them to stay closed when people are off from work.  We found a Subway around the corner from the hotel where I could get an egg and cheese sandwich, so that would have to do for today.

After breakfast, we walked over to the bus stop to catch the bus to the museum.  This bus normally runs down State Street, but we didn’t think it would be a problem because the road was still open to traffic since the parade didn’t start for a few more hours, so surely the bus should still be running on the normal route, right?  Nope! We got to the bus shelter and saw a sign that our bus was being rerouted starting at 8am today, and it was now around 8:45am.  I was a bit annoyed about this because we did look for signs in the bus shelters last night as we walked back from the hotel at 11pm, but there were no signs posted at that time.  I also looked online at the public transit website and could not find anything about route changes for the parade.  Maybe this new plan of ours wasn’t meant to be?  The sign was very confusing and said we could catch our bus on Harrison Street between State and Michigan Avenue, so after a bit of searching on Google Maps, we figured out where that was located and walked down that way.  When we got to Harrison Street, we realized that State and Michigan are 3 blocks apart, so how could we know where the bus would stop?!  We walked that whole stretch of road and did not see any bus shelters or signs about makeshift bus stops.  I even went into one of the hotels to ask their concierge, but he had no idea where they bus stop was located.  Just as we were about to give up and use Uber instead, a bus turned the corner off of Michigan Avenue!  We flagged him down in the middle of the street as if he was a taxi driver, and when he opened the door to tell us that we aren’t at an official bus stop, we just boarded the bus right there!  We put in more than enough effort today trying to find this bus, and there was no chance we were letting him drive away without letting us on board!  After we got on and he continued on his route, he turned left off of Harrison to go south on State Street and stopped at that corner Wouldn’t it have been better if the detour sign told us to board the bus on the southwest corner of State and Harrison?!?  That would have been a whole lot more clear than making us run up and down a 3 block stretch of city streets trying to guess where the bus might stop!  Ok, rant over!

The bus ride itself was very quick, and we pulled up in front of the Adler Planetarium at 9:10am.  There is a promenade that runs along Lake Michigan between the Planetarium and the Shedd Aquarium, which offers beautiful panoramic views of the downtown Chicago skyline.  The trip down here is worth it just for this view, even if you don’t want to visit the museums!

We still had a few minutes before the museum opened so we walked around the grounds, admiring the beautiful views of Lake Michigan.  Along the south side of the museum was a small beach.  I imagined this would be quite crowded later today when the temperatures were due to top 90 degrees!

The instructions on our City Pass said to enter the museum from the marked door at the side entrance where we could skip the lines of the main ticket office.  One of the employees unlocked the door promptly at 9:30am and we were first in line to have our pass scanned and exchanged for an actual ticket to the museum.  We were also given a list of all the shows playing on the various screens, and the lady told us to pick 2 shows to start.  Our pass gave us access to unlimited shows all day, but she could only give us 2 tickets to start and then we could return to the ticket booth later in the afternoon if we wanted to add more shows.  We didn’t want to spend the whole day here since we still had to go on the HOHO bus, so 2 shows seemed like a perfect amount.  We signed up for the 11:30am showing of Planet Nine, and the 1:15pm showing of Skywatch Live, thinking that would give us 2 hours to enjoy the museum first, and we could eat lunch at the museum cafeteria between the 2 shows.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I visited a planetarium, so I was really looking forward to seeing the exhibits here.  They had exhibits about the various planets, telescopes, the moon, the history of astronomy, and current space research.  Some of the exhibits were geared more for children, but a lot of them were informative and 2 hours was the perfect amount of time for us to see the whole museum.  This was from an interactive exhibit where you could take an infrared selfie!

The doors to the theater opened about 10 minutes before each show, so we headed that way at 11:20am and there was already a long line to get in. Definitely try to line up a little early so you can get a good seat because this show was in the dome theater where the movie will surround you and it’s best to sit towards the back in the middle of the row for the best view.  We were really excited to see a show in the big dome as that is one of the best features of planetariums!  Here was the description of this show, Planet Nine, from the museum website:

In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft gave us our first close look at Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet in the outskirts of our Solar System. The New Horizons flyby was big news, and the pictures it continues to send back to Earth reveal a world far more complex than anyone realized.  Using nothing but their wits (and high-powered telescopes and a thorough understanding of orbital mechanics), these intrepid explorers are making new discoveries about how our Solar System formed—and what it may be hiding. Follow Mike Brown and his team at CalTech as they uncover dwarf worlds like the remarkably bright Eris; Haumea, an egg-shaped object rotating incredibly fast; and Sedna, whose orbit takes it deep into the far reaches of the Solar System. Is there a new planet beyond these distant objects? We’ll tag along on Mike Brown’s first night searching for the ninth planet at the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. Join us on the hunt!

When we were at the ticket booth this morning, we basically picked our shows blindly because it was hard to know what the show was really going to be like just by reading the descriptions.  We both loved this show!  It was very informative and explained things we knew nothing about in a way that made it very relatable and easy to understand.  The images were amazing and you really felt like you were moving at some points as they showed you images from space.  The show lasted 30 minutes and as soon as the lights turned back on, we headed straight to the cafeteria.

The theater was quite big and held over 100 people, and I had a feeling lots of people would want to get lunch when that show ended at noon.  I was right!  We were one of the first to arrive and there was no line at all, but by the time we finished ordering, there were at least 50 people in line behind us!  Timing is everything!!  The cafeteria had a bunch of salads, sandwiches, and mini-pizzas, and everything was very well priced at under $10 a dish.  

DH ordered a chicken sandwich and I got The Harvester salad with grilled chicken, apples, grapes, craisins, walnuts, feta cheese, and balsamic dressing.  They gave us a buzzer and told us to find a table and we could pick up our food at the counter when it was ready.  It took about 10 minutes for the buzzer to go off, so the wait wasn’t too long, but I can imagine people at the end of that long line would be spending a lot more time at the cafeteria than they may have wanted!  My salad was delicious and so big that I couldn’t finish it!

After we finished eating, there were still a few minutes before we needed to line up for our second show.  Outside of the main museum building, they have the Doane Observatory which houses the largest aperture telescope available to the public in the Chicago area.  We walked over there to check it out, and they let us look through the telescope to see the surface of the sun.  They said they were looking for sunspots and that they could see 2 of them today, but honestly, I just saw a blob of orange haha  It was fun to check it out though and the docents were happy to answer any questions.  The walk back between the observatory and the main museum offered beautiful views of Lake Michigan.

Lots of people are out on their boats today!

We went back inside to a different dome theater for our second show: Skywatch Live.  I think the museum had 2 dome theaters plus 1 or 2 flat screen theaters, so there was really a lot to offer here!  This is the description of the show from the museum website:

The Adler’s view of downtown Chicago is magnificent, but the lights of the city make it a little tough to see the ones in the sky. What’s a stargazer to do? Join us for Skywatch Live!  In this show, your live presenter will turn down the city lights and crank up the stars to show you the night sky over Chicago like you’ve never seen it before. You’ll learn how to navigate by starlight, get to know the stars behind your favorite constellations, and witness the incomprehensible vastness of the Universe without ever leaving your seat.  Our view of the real sky shifts each day as Earth makes its way around the Sun, and so does the model sky in Skywatch Live! Every day, the show matches the view of the sky directly over Chicago on that day, so you’ll get a new perspective on the Universe every time you return.

This show was more of the typical show you see at most planetariums.  The docent used an interactive computer to point out which constellations are visible in the sky tonight over the Midwest region.  She explained about how each constellation got its name or what the history was behind it, and a little bit about how to find it for ourselves, although the bright city lights make it very hard to see most of these stars while in Chicago.  It was interesting, and we were both glad we saw the show, but it was not very unique and we both liked Planet Nine much more.  This show also lasted 30 minutes, so it was over at around 1:45pm.  By then, we were ready to move on with our day, so we headed out to look for the HOHO bus stop.

There was a long driveway along the water, and there were bus shelters marked for several other bus tours, but we didn’t see any signs specifically for Big Bus Tours.  Luckily, we had seen the buses driving around town yesterday, so we knew what to look out for.  After about 5 minutes, we saw our bus pulling up so we walked over to where it stopped.  When we showed our City Pass to the driver, she was supposed to exchange it for a real HOHO bus ticket.  There were several people boarding the bus at this stop and she didn’t want us to hold up the line, so she said to just get on and take a seat and that we could process our ticket before we got off the bus.  Ok! Sounds good to me!  We saw a few people getting off the bus as we got on, so we went up to the top level in hopes of finding a seat up there.  Sure enough, there were a few available seats, so we sat down and got comfy for our big bus tour.

While the open top design of the bus is great for seeing the views as we drove around the city, there is absolutely no shade up there, so it was very hot in the 90+ degree temps! Good thing we had a small tube of sunscreen in my purse to prevent a burn!

Our plan was to ride a full loop of the tour, and then to get off when the bus got back to Millennium Park.  While it would have been a shorter walk to get on/off at Willis Tower, that would mean we’d have to stay on the bus for an extra ¾ of the ride, so it made more sense to get off at the Millennium Park stop, which is just 3 stops after where we boarded.  It was now after 2pm and there was a lot of traffic, but the guide did a good job of keeping us entertained between stops.  It’s not always easy to take good photos on a moving bus, especially when trees and power lines block your view, but I did my best.

First, we passed the Field Museum.  

Beautiful views of the city on this bright sunny day!

The Buckingham Fountain was going off as we drove by.  Obviously my photos were better yesterday when we got right closer to it, but it was still fun to see it again today.

Last glimpse of the skyscrapers before we go under ground…

Chicago was built as a city above a city.  There is a whole network of roads below the main city roads which allow traffic to get across the city without stopping at every intersection at all of the stop lights.  This also allows them to keep the delivery trucks and garbage trucks somewhat hidden from the tourists and locals up on the main city streets.  The HOHO bus took us down there to cut across the city, but I’m not sure that it was much of a short cut because the traffic was very heavy.  The guide made sure to tell everyone to stay seated when the bus was underground, and I could see why.  Look at how close our heads were to the top of the tunnel!!

When we emerged from the tunnel, the bus headed north on Columbus Drive to cross over the Chicago River.

Trump Tower really stands out from this perspective!

The bus then turned right onto Illinois Avenue towards the next stop at Navy Pier.  I told DH that I thought this building looked like a giant fidget spinner, and then a minute later, the tour guide said the same thing!  This is actually called Lake Point Tower and is the tallest building along the waterfront.  There was a law passed that no other tall buildings could be built that close to the water because it obstructed the views of the surrounding buildings and created an eyesore, but this building was grandfathered in.  Lots of famous people own condos here, including Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Alice Cooper, among others.

Navy Pier looked a lot more crowded now than it did when we were here last night.  Crowds are not my favorite thing, so we opted to stay on the bus instead of hopping off to check it out.  Plus, when we got to the bus stop, there was a very long line of people waiting to get on, and it looked like it would take 3 or 4 buses for everyone to find seats, so we didn’t want to deal with that hassle.  Just a thought:  if you do take this HOHO bus and want to get off at Navy Pier, don’t try to reboard here.  Instead, walk a few blocks back to the prior stop at the Sheraton Grand Hotel as it is a flat walk and only about half a mile away.  That way, you won’t have to wait in a long line, and you can get a seat when lots of others get off the bus at the Navy Pier stop!

Next, the bus drove along the Magnificent Mile to point out all the high end stores, and then drove through the River North neighborhood.  I loved how there were random old building scattered between the new modern skyscrapers.

Then, we turned a corner and could see the building formally known as the John Hancock Tower.  A few weeks ago, John Hancock actually gave up the naming rights, so the building does not have a name right now, and it will remain that way until someone wants to pay $1 million per month to name it!

The bus continued on its way through the River North neighborhood.  There were tons of interesting restaurants and shops here, and I think I’d want to spend more time in this area if I ever returned to Chicago.  This is also where we had dinner last night at Lou Malnatis.  

This is the original location of Pizzeria Uno.  Our guide explained something that should have been obvious but that I never really thought about before.  Why is it named Pizzeria Uno?  Because they were the first pizza restaurant to make deep dish pizza!  There is also a Pizzeria Due a few blocks away, likely the second pizza shop.

This is Tribune Tower, at least that was its name the day we saw it. It is the long-time home to the Chicago Tribune, but due to declining sales in print newspapers thanks to the internet, they no longer needed such a large building.  They are relocating to a smaller office and have sold the building, which will soon be converted to condominiums.  The building itself is beautiful, with an ornate neo-Gothic façade, designed to mimic the Rouen Cathedral in France, complete with gargoyles and flying buttresses. The lower part of the outer wall is comprised of pieces of stone from famous landmarks all over the world, including the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Parthenon, Westminster Palace, the Great Pyramid, The Alamo, Angkor Wat, and Notre Dame, just to name a few.  I truly hope that they keep the outer façade of this building intact when it is converted to condos as it is such a unique piece of architecture.

We saw this flag all over the city, and then learned that it is the Chicago flag!  The white sections represent the North, West and South sides of the city.  The blue stripes represent Lake Michigan and the Chicago River.  The 4 Red Stars each have 6 points, which represent something different for each of the stars.  The stars represent Fort Dearborn, the great Chicago fire of 1871, the 2 times Chicago hosted the World’s Fair in 1893 and 1933.

After that, the bus returned to the first stop on the route at the Riverwalk.  Our guide was ending his shift, so we waited a few minutes for a new guide to get settled, then we continued along the first part of the bus route.  Just as we were getting ready to go, the guide found out that State Street was now opened to traffic, so we were the first bus to resume the regular bus route!  I guess our plan to ride the HOHO bus in the afternoon paid off after all! We drove down State Street, passing the Chicago Theater and several old department stores, then turned west on Adams Street, driving passed our hotel, to reach the Willis Tower.

There wasn’t much to see or photograph in this neighborhood since it’s mostly just office buildings for government and private businesses, but then we returned to Michigan Avenue to see Millennium Park and the Art Institute.  

Like I mentioned, our original plan was to stay on the bus to hear the full tour back to where we boarded at Adler Planetarium, and then to get off the bus 3 stops later when the bus returned to the park.  By now, we had been on the bus for over 2 hours, it was extremely hot, and we found this new tour guide to be kind of annoying, so in a split second decision, I turned to DH and said, do you want to just get off now?  We were only a few blocks from our hotel, and we were both ready to move on with our day, so he said YES!  No time to think twice, since the next stop is much further down on Michigan Avenue, so we quickly ran down the stairs and off the bus before we missed our chance.   Once we were standing on the sidewalk, we realized we never redeemed our City Pass for an actual HOHO ticket.  In theory, we could have just walked away and no one would know the difference.  The lady driving the bus ended her shift when our original guide did, back at the Riverwalk, so the new bus driver had no idea that we didn’t pay yet.  That didn’t seem right though, and we suspected that they get reimbursed somehow based on how many people redeem their City Pass each day, so we wanted to do the right thing and pay for our fare.  Besides, we had such a jam-packed weekend planned that there wasn’t even time to add another attraction to our agenda, so there was no reason not to just redeem or pass. There was a Big Bus Tours employee on the sidewalk, so we asked him if he could help us redeem our City Pass, and he said that was no problem.  He printed out a receipt that we could use if we wanted to reboard the bus, but it was now 4pm and the pass is only good until 5pm, so we knew we wouldn’t use it for that purpose. The receipt also included a voucher for a free souvenir bag to be picked up at the store below The Bean, and a free sample of popcorn from Garrett’s Popcorn.  The employee said we could redeem those vouchers any day we wanted to, so I put them in my purse and figured we’d deal with it tomorrow or Monday. For now, we just wanted to go back to the hotel and take a nice, long shower!

We realized an added bonus to cutting the HOHO tour short was that we’d have time to attend the free wine and cheese event at the hotel at 5pm.  That is, until we walked in the lobby of the hotel and asked the front desk staff where the event is held, and they said it was cancelled today.  Wait, what?!  We didn’t even know this free wine and cheese existed until we checked in yesterday, and now you’re telling us it’s cancelled??  That’s not fair!  Apparently, the hotel was short staffed because someone called out sick, and they were extremely busy dealing with all the tourists staying at the hotel for the holiday weekend, so they didn’t have anyone to staff the event.  We were a bit annoyed about that and thought they could at least make it self-serve like the coffee and breakfast food, but I guess that wasn’t an option and instead, they just cancelled it.  Oh well, such is life!

While we were talking to the front desk staff, we asked if they had any thinner pillows and explained the saga from last night.  They said they would talk to housekeeping and try to send something up for us.  With that settled, we went up to the room to get showered and changed for the evening.

By 5pm, we were ready to go.  Instead of sitting around killing time, we decided to just go out to dinner now.  Our plan was to go to Giordano’s for another dinner of deep dish pizza.  They have a location just 3 or 4 blocks from our hotel, so we decided to go over now in hopes of beating the dinner rush and getting seated quickly.  

Our suspicions were right, and the hostess seated us immediately!  Deep dish pizza takes 45 minutes to cook, so we knew it would be a while before we saw our food anyway, so why not just get the evening started early? Tonight, we kept it simple and ordered a small cheese deep dish pizza, and added mushrooms, black olives, and meatballs for our toppings.  We knew it would be a while before the food arrived, so we also ordered a pitcher of Goose Island beer because it is local to Chicago!

Exactly 45 minutes after ordering, our waitress brought our pizza out to us.  Immediately, we knew we would like Giordano’s pizza better than Lou Malnati’s.  The presentation was much better with it being served out of the cooking pan, and we could see the crust looked tastier and it was much thicker than our pizza from last night.

All it took was one bite and we were obsessed!  This pizza was amazing, with rich, buttery crust, a thick layer of cheese, perfect seasoning in the sauce, and just the right amount of toppings.  Unlike the small pizza we ordered last night which was barely enough to fill us up, tonight’s small pizza was cut into 6 slices and I could only eat 2 of them before getting full and admitting defeat. Not wanting any of this deliciousness to go to waste, DH was happy to finish the rest of my portion.  Just when we had written off the hype of Chicago style pizza, we discovered Giordano’s and our opinions completely changed.  These two New York natives can officially say we loved our Chicago pizza!

We were done with dinner a few minutes before 6pm, which meant we could officially start our night out on the town!  Last night on the walking tour, Aram suggested a few bars that offer great views of the city, so we thought tonight would be a great time to check them out. Our first stop was Cindy’s, a stylish and trendy rooftop bar in the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel on Michigan Avenue.  We walked about a mile from the restaurant to the hotel, and found a long line in the lobby to get on the elevator.  We waited about 20 minutes to reach the front, then rode the elevator up to the top floor.  The bar was super crowded, and the hostess said it would be a wait if we wanted a table for food service, but we were just there for drinks so we went straight outside to the balcony and were treated to a beautiful view of Millennium Park and Lake Michigan. DH went back inside to get us some drinks from the bar while I took a bunch of photos and marveled at the great views!

Fun view of the Bean… you can see how big it is as compared to the people standing next to it

Looking past the Art Institute, you can see the Planetarium out in the distance at the end of the peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan.

This water feature was directly below us.  We would later learn that the faces on the towers are people blowing kisses.

It also spurts water out from their mouths.  I am sure the people playing in the water enjoyed cooling off a bit from this hot day!

Cheers to a great Saturday night out in Chicago!

We planned that our next stop would be at London House, which is another rooftop bar located along the Chicago River.  When we arrived, there was an extremely long line to get in so we decided to skip it and just continue walking north to the John Hancock Building.  We knew there would be a long like there too, but that destination was more important to us than the London House.  Luckily, all 3 of these bars are located right on Michigan Avenue so the walk was easy.

I really liked this sculpture and water feature in the lobby of the John Hancock building.  The lights from the fixture hanging from the ceiling reflected on the smooth water below, creating a modern and elegant focal piece to the lobby.

As expected, there was a very long line for the elevators at the John Hancock building.  One of the big tourist attractions is called Chicago 360, which is on the 96^th floor of this building.  They charge about $25 to go up and see the views, and there is a slanted glass window where you can lean out and feel like you are floating above the city.  We decided to save some money and opted for the free version.  There is a restaurant on the 94^th floor and a bar on the 95^th floor of the building, so our plan was to go up to the bar for a drink and enjoy the same view as those people one level above us at the tourist attraction. When we eventually got upstairs, the staff was surprisingly rude and unhelpful.  The man standing outside the elevator door pointed us in one direction, but we really should have gone the other way.  There was a line forming to get a table, and we all just waited there, with no host or anyone telling us what was happening.  After a few minutes, another employee came over and asked the people at the back of the line if they were a party for 2, and when they said yes, he brought them to a table, ignoring the rest of us who were already waiting in line before them!  Realizing it would take an extremely long time to be seated if they weren’t even going to go in order, DH and I decided to just get off the line and walk over to the windows to check out the view.  At first, another employee tried to stop us because I think she thought we were going to seat ourselves at an empty table.  We said we just wanted to look out the window and walked passed her to see this stunning view looking south over downtown Chicago.

Pardon the glare, but it was hard to avoid with the windows.  There was another long line to get on the elevators to go back downstairs. Overall, our experience was disappointing, given the rude staff and difficulty getting a table.  Had they treated us better, we would have paid for a drink here, but instead, we just ended up getting a free view of the city and leaving shortly after arriving.  While we waited online for the elevators, we could look down to the restaurant on the floor below.

By now, it was close to 10pm so we started walking back towards the Riverwalk.  It was a clear night, so with no chance of rain we wanted to try out one of the bars along the river.  Unfortunately, this really was not meant to be because we walked down several flights of stairs just in time to find out the bar was closing!  Apparently everything on the Riverwalk closes at 11pm and the bars stop serving drinks at 10:30pm, so we barely missed last call.  The Riverwalk was on our way back to the hotel from the John Hancock Building, but it would have been nice to take a break from walking and enjoy a drink on the river.  Instead, we climbed back up several flights of stairs to reach street level and walked back to the hotel.  DH wanted one last drink before calling it a night, so he went to the bar downstairs in our hotel.  It was called Elephant & Castle and was a typical pub with a decent beer selection. I was exhausted by the point and just ordered a water to keep DH company, and when he was done, we retired back to the hotel room to hopefully find our replacement pillows.  When we opened the door, we found one thinner pillow sitting on the desk.  Okay, this will work for me, but DH wanted a thinner pillow too.  We called down to the front desk and they said they only had one pillow like that.  Ummm, ok? This whole thing was really irritating, but DH said that he was able to get a little sleep last night so he would make due with the original pillow and let me use the new one since I did not sleep at all.  After such a long day of walking around the city, we both fell asleep shortly after laying down in bed!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 19,049 steps; 7.69 miles

Friday, May 25, 2018

When my alarm clock buzzed at 4am, it took all of my willpower not to hit the snooze button.  Luckily, the thoughts of deep dish pizza were strong enough to pull me out of bed.  We quickly got ready and ate breakfast, and then requested an Uber at 4:30. It took the Uber 15 minutes to arrive, which didn’t really surprise me considering how early it was, but there was no traffic and we arrive at SJC around 5am.  The line at security was much longer than I expected given the early hour, and it took even longer to get through because they stopped the line to reposition the ropes for each security line.  Isn’t that the kind of thing they should take care of at 3am when there aren’t any passengers waiting??  On the bright side, we didn’t need to remove our liquids, shoes, or tablets because they let us all just go through the metal detectors instead of the thorough screening process.

One big advantage of a flight leaving at 6:30am is that it is unlikely to be delayed.  Our plane was already sitting at the gate when we arrived, and they began boarding at 6am for an on-time departure.  Southwest has some new planes in the fleet that are bigger with about 30 extra seats.  It was nice that they used a brand new big plane for our flight because it is one of the longest routes they fly.  Since the flight was twice as long as most of their flights, they had a little surprise for us when they came around with the basket of snacks.  They served plane-shaped cinnamon cookies that tasted like Teddy Grahams, and coconut biscuit cookies, in addition to the standard peanuts and pretzels.

As we flew over the Sierras, we had beautiful views of snow-capped mountains through light puffy clouds.  

As we made our way further east, the views changed to endless farms and crop fields as far as the eye could see.  I passed the time by watching the new season of 13 Reasons Why on my iPad, and before I knew it, we could see the Chicago skyline in the distance.  We sat on the right side of the plane (when facing the front), and had beautiful views of the city and Lake Michigan as we made our final descent into Midway Airport.

We landed a few minutes early at 12:30pm local time, but we had to wait about 10 minutes for our gate to open up.  Midway is a nice, small, convenient airport, and we easily found our way down to the L train station.  It did take a few minutes to walk down all of the corridors, but once we found our way, it was clearly labeled.  We bought one Ventra card to share because they cost $5 each but you can scan on up to 6 people at a time.  L train rides cost $2.50, and bus rides cost $2.25, so we loaded $20 onto the card, knowing we planned to ride round trip to the airport and to Wrigley Field. If we needed to add more money later in the weekend, we could easily do that at any vending machine in the L train stations.  The orange line ends at Midway so it only goes in one direction and you can’t get lost when boarding the train.  I appreciated that even though there were 2 trains waiting, they had a sign indicating which train was next to leave so we knew which one to board.

The ride to our stop took about 25 minutes, and we exited at the Quincy stop in the Central Loop.  From there, we only had to walk 2 blocks to reach our hotel. We arrived a few minutes before 2pm and our room was ready even though check in wasn’t officially until 3pm. They explained that there is complimentary coffee and snacks in the lounge downstairs (in addition to the Keurig machine in our room), and they have a complimentary wine and cheese happy hour from 5-6pm each night. We went up to our room to drop off our bags and change into shorts, and then we set off to explore the city. Just one block away, we found this huge sculpture (use the women standing below it to show the scale of its height!).  We didn’t know it at the time, but later learned that this sculpture was 53 feet tall and designed to look like a flamingo.

Our hotel was on Adams Street, and as we walked a few blocks east, we found a sign marking the start of Historic Route 66.  I’m not sure of the exact path it travels, but I have been to the sign at the end of the route at the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, so it was neat to see the starting point and know that our hotel is on the same road.

Proof that I also saw the end of the route in 2011…

From there, we walked south on Michigan Avenue, passed the Art Institute of Chicago to Grant Park.  There were lots of pretty fountains, sculptures, and gardens along the way.  Being a warm, sunny day on Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, the sidewalks were buzzing with lots of people out and about, enjoying the day, and it was such a great way to start our weekend here.

Dan Kiley Plaza at the Art Institute

I love how the clouds reflect off the skyscrapers

This Abraham Lincoln statue was meant to be placed in Lincoln Park, and there should have been a statue of Ulysses S. Grant in this location.  Somehow things got mixed up, but it was decided to just leave this Lincoln statue here in Grant Park.

North President’s Court

Buckingham Fountain

As we were admiring the fountain and taking photos, this happened…!

Every hour, the fountain shoots this impressive stream of water up into the sky for about 10 minutes. We could actually see the fountain going off from several other place around the city during our visit, so it was fun to see it now up close and personal.

Walking around to the opposite side of the fountain, you can see the city skyline in the background of the photo.

Next, we continued back north, walking from Grant Park to Millennium Park.  On our way, we saw this beautiful garden.  The Lurie Garden spans 5 acres within Millennium Park, and is dedicated to eco-friendly botanical landscaping.

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion is used for music festivals throughout the year

Just a short walk further and we found The Bean!!  Officially called Cloud Gate, this silver bean-shaped sculpture was something I really looked forward to seeing.  The sun was shining bright and the skyline looked so pretty in the reflection of the metal. 

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who wanted to see The Bean today, so it was super crowded and impossible to get a photo of just the statue without any other people in the photo.

Our reflection in The Bean

Once we had our fill of The Bean, we walked further north along Michigan Avenue until we reached the Chicago River.  We’d be spending lots of time here later tonight on our walking tour, so we took a quick photo and continued on our way.

Looks like these people are having a fun Friday evening on their boats!

We were getting hungry since we hadn’t eaten since the sandwich we ate on the plane, so we weaved our way through the River North section to find something for dinner. One of our goals for this weekend was to eat as much deep dish pizza as possible, so why not start right away?! I tried to research the “best” restaurants for deep dish pizza in Chicago but it was nearly impossible to get a straight answer because it is so subjective.  DH heard about this place called “Illuminati” that was said to have good pizza, but I couldn’t find that restaurant anywhere online.  I did notice a handful of places that appeared on more than one top 10 list, including Lou Malnati’s.  We both laughed when we realized he had misheard the name of that restaurant and thought it was called “Illuminati” instead!  With that straightened out, we decided to eat there on our first night in town.  According to reviews, this place is very popular and can have very long waits to get a table.  We were scheduled to take a walking tour tonight which met at 6:45pm so we knew we had to eat an early dinner, but between the risk of a long line, and the fact that it takes 45 minutes to cook deep dish pizza, we knew we had to get to the restaurant very early.  We arrived at 4:15pm and were shocked to be seated immediately!  There were lots of people at the restaurant but luckily there was no wait for a table for 2.  

Lou Malntai’s menu

We were going to order a plain pizza, but “The Lou” caught our eye.  It included a spinach mix with garlic, basil, onions, mushrooms, and sliced roma tomatoes, covered with 3 cheeses.  It was nice that our waiter warned us it would take 45 to 60 minutes to cook the pizza, even though we already knew that.  I can imagine if they don’t warn everyone, they must get lots of complaints from impatient people.  We ordered the small, which is said to serve 2 people, and asked for the tomatoes on only one side because I don’t really like tomatoes.  We passed the time catching up on social media and missed emails, and just enjoying the cool air conditioning after spending several hours walking around in the heat outside.

The pizza arrived just about an hour after we ordered.  It was served in the baking pan and the waiter helped serve our first slices.

While I have never been to Chicago and therefore have never had official Chicago deep dish pizza, we do have a Chicago-style restaurant we enjoy eating at at home called Patxi, so I only had that in mind for comparison.  Honestly, neither of us was blown away by this pizza.  The crust had a grainy cornmeal-like consistency, and the pizza was too salty.  We both thought it was just okay, as in we didn’t hate it, but we definitely didn’t love it.  Maybe our standards were off and this was what Chicago pizza was supposed to taste like?  We ordered the small size because the menu said that was good for 2 people.  It was cut into 4 slices, and we had no trouble finishing the whole pie.  We didn’t really want any leftovers considering we were not going back to the hotel anytime soon, but had there been a little more pizza or had it been a little bigger, I think we both would have eaten more. We were both satiated, but neither of us was really full.  

We finished dinner by 5:45pm and had about an hour before our tour, so we started to walk back towards the Riverwalk.  One thing we were not quite prepared for this weekend was the heat and humidity.  It was over 90 degrees and very humid every day this weekend and ended up being Chicago’s hottest Memorial Day Weekend on record!! Instead of walking around to kill time before our tour, we went into the lobby of one of the hotels to relax and enjoy the air conditioning.  While we were there, I was looking at Google maps for directions and noticed a parade route along State Street showing up on the map.  I have never seen that before and I thought it was a little weird, but I clicked on it and noticed that the Memorial Day parade was on Saturday.  Uh oh!  We were planning to ride the Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) bus on Saturday at the same time as the parade and State Street is on the HOHO bus route.  Not only that, but we were going to board at stop #3 at the Willis Tower, located just a few blocks from our hotel, and stop #2 is the Chicago Theater on State Street, so the bus wouldn’t be able to get to our stop if State Street is closed for the parade.  This is so not good!  I immediately went onto the website for the HOHO company Big Bus Tours, but they did not mention anything about changes or cancellations for this weekend.  I tried to call their office, but it was now 6:30pm and they closed at 6pm.  Too bad I didn’t catch this problem earlier in the day, but why would I know to think about that when Memorial Day isn’t until Monday?  Who has a Memorial Day Parade on a Saturday?!?  There is no contact email address on their website and the ‘contact us’ online form would not load on my phone, so I did not know what to do.  I didn’t want to risk showing up at our HOHO stop #3 and waiting for hours but the bus never showed up because of the parade.  I went onto Trip Advisor and searched their reviews for the word ‘parade’ to see how they handled this situation in the past, and luckily there was one very helpful post about the 2017 Columbus Day Parade and how the HOHO bus was a total fiasco.  He said he was stuck on the bus in traffic for a long time and it was a terrible experience, and that no one should ride the bus on the day of a parade.  Big Bus Tours wrote a long reply, and included an email address at the end of their post.  I knew it was after hours and unlikely that I would get a reply tonight, but just in case, I sent them an email to ask about the plan for tomorrow. Our original plan was to get on the first bus which would pick us up at 9:15am. We would need to leave our hotel a few minutes after 9am at the latest to catch that bus, and their office as not due to open until 9am tomorrow.  I did not expect a reply by then, but it was worth a shot.  By the way, for those of you thinking “Why not just swap your Sunday plans for tomorrow?,”  we panned to ride the HOHO bus on Saturday morning and get off after one full loop when we got back to the Planetarium to spend the rest of the day there. The Planetarium is 2 miles south of our hotel, so it was a little too far to walk to in this heat and it worked well to use the HOHO as free transit to the Planetarium.  On Sunday, we had tickets to the Cubs game and we planned to spend some time at Wrigleyville beforehand, so it would be too rushed to do all of that on Sunday.  Anyway, all of this happened at the same time as we were meeting up with our evening tour so it was really stressful.  I just told myself to forget about it for the time being and to try to enjoy the tour, and I would figure out tomorrow’s plans later.

Last night, I got an email from Aram, the guide from Free Tours By Foot.  He sent instructions on where and when to meet him and included his photo so we knew who he was.  Right at 6:50pm, Aram arrived wearing a company logo on his shirt and holding a clip board to checkus in.  There were about 25 people on the tour with us.  This walking tour was to point out key sites along the Riverwalk and to learn about some of Chicago’s history.  Aram explained that this is a “pay what you want” tour and that we could do so at the end if we felt so inclined.  The tour lasted exactly 2 hours and covered 1.5 miles, with lots of stops and photo opportunities along the way.  Aram was a fantastic guide.  Instead of simply rattling off facts, he told stories and explained the history and significance of the sites in a way that made it both interesting and memorable.  We were very impressed with this tour and thought he was one of the best guides we have had on any tour we have ever taken!  He even incorporated a bathroom break in the middle of the tour at Ghiradelli, with a chance to sample some chocolate.  This is just a small sampling of the photos I took on the tour…

The Vietnam Memorial is decorated with wreaths for Memorial Day

Trump Tower Chicago is the 7^th tallest building in the world.  While the building itself is quite sleek, with 5 distinct levels symbolizing parts of Chicago’s history, and a nearly all glass exterior to reflect the surrounding riverfront skyline, the 2,800 square foot TRUMP sign creates a controversial eyesore.  The sign was granted permits through proper proceedings, but the city council was so upset by the final product that they revamped the rules for signs on buildings in the city.  Since the current Trump sign is grandfathered in, they effectively guaranteed that this eyesore will always be by far the biggest sign on a building in Chicago.  Maybe they should have just left the laws as they were originally!

The Wrigley Building was built as the headquarters for the chewing gum company, and is famous for being the first major office building built north of the Chicago River.  After this building opened, many other companies followed suit and it was the start of a new downtown area in Chicago.

The Wrigley Building’s white glazed terra cotta façade glows beautifully in the evening light… with Trump Tower looming over in the background.

I loved how beautiful the riverwalk looked as all the lights came on at night.

The NBC Tower was built to resemble the art deco buildings of Rockefeller Center in New York.

The views grew even more beautiful as the sky darkened and the lights reflected off the water.

Aram timed the tour to end at exactly 9pm at the Centennial Fountain on the river so we could see the fountain go off.  This happens every hour to commemorate when Chicago reversed the flow of the river’s current because the trash and sewage they had been dumping in the river was polluting Lake Michigan and their drinking water.  They engineered a way to force the river to flow south and connect with the Mississippi River to send the pollution south and clean up the lake water.  This was a huge turning point in Chicago’s history (even if it did annoy the people who lived down stream in St. Louis!), so they created this fountain to honor it.

The problem is that it creates a waterfall over the river so boats need to wait for it to end before proceeding if they don’t want to get soaked haha

The Centennial Fountain

After the tour, we walked over to Navy Pier to check out what all the fuss is about.  Navy Pier is listed on all of the lists of top attractions in Chicago, and all the tour guides say it’s a must-see for tourists, so since our tour ended a half mile away, we decided to walk over and check it out. When we arrived, there were lots of people leaving and hardly anyone was there.  We thought this was a popular tourist attraction and expected it to be really hopping at 9:15 on a Friday night, but it was nearly deserted.  We walked around to see the gardens, the carnival rides, and the nice views of the nighttime skyline, but didn’t stay long because it was dead.  Maybe it is more exciting here during the day, but we did not understand the hype.

A few people were playing in the fountain, likely trying to cool off after this extremely hot and humid day!

This indoor garden is sometimes used as an event space.

 We could have redeemed our City Pass to go on these rides, but decided against it.

There are great views of the Chicago skyline from out on the pier.

After about 15 minutes of exploring, we decided to walk back to the river walk to grab a drink at one of the outdoor bars.  Navy Pier is 2 miles from our hotel, so we considered just taking an Uber to the hotel and calling it a night, but it was only 9:30 and we thought we could tough it out for 1 drink.  The Riverwalk was a mile away so that would break up the long walk.  Unfortunately, life does not always go according to plan. We arrived at the riverwalk around 10pm, just as the skies opened up and it started to rain.  All of the bars on the Riverwalk are outdoors with no inside seating, so we had to think of a plan B.  We decided to duck into the Renaissance Hotel where we had been hanging out earlier before the tour, and ordered a round of drinks at the lobby bar.  This was the first chance I had to look at my phone in a few hours, and I was shocked to see an email reply from Big Bus Tours.  This is what it said…

Thank you for your inquiry.  As far as we know right now we will not be
impacted too much during the parade. However, sometimes the city does shut down certain streets that prevents us from stopping at certain locations. If this does happen, we will adjust accordingly and signs will be posted amongst the buses as you board.  We do still expect to pick up at the stop number 3 and majority of the locations along the tour.

Ummm, how can you tell me you don’t expect any problems?  Surely the city will shut down State Street to vehicular traffic during the parade.  This sounded like a big fiasco, so we started thinking of alternate plans.  While it may be possible to take the Architectural River Tour in the morning, then take an Uber down Michigan Avenue to the Planetarium, that didn’t sound like a good idea because we wouldn’t get to the Planetarium until 12:30pm, then we’d need to eat lunch, leaving us not much time at the museum before they closed at 4pm.  Instead, we decided to take a public bus from near our hotel to get to the Planetarium when they opened at 9:3am.  We would spend a few hours there and eat lunch in their cafeteria, then catch the HOHO bus in the mid-afternoon.  Hopefully by then, the parade would be over and traffic would be back to normal.  It meant spending a little more money out of pocket to get to the museum (which should have been free with the HOHO bus), but that wasn’t a huge deal.  It also meant we would be sitting outside upstairs on the HOHO bus during the peak heat of the day, instead of in the earlier morning hours as planned, and on a day with a predicated high temperature in the 90’s, we were not thrilled about that, but with the parade, this seemed like the best option.  

After finishing up our beers, we made the one mile walk back to our hotel, passing the famous Chicago Theater on State Street on our way.

When we got back to the hotel, all we wanted to do was crash on our bed and get some sleep after an extremely long first day in Chicago. Unfortunately, that was not to be.  When we checked into our room this afternoon, we were very impressed with how clean and modern it was.  We were up on the 9^th floor so we couldn’t hear any noise from the street, the room was very large and fairly recently renovated, and they even had a fill-your-own filtered water bottle station on each floor.

What we didn’t notice or bother to check was the pillows.  OMG, these pillows were terrible!!  They were very firm and way too thick, and we had no idea how anyone would find them comfortable for sleeping.  After waking up at 4am, and then walking all over Chicago all day, you’d think we could sleep on a concrete slab, but after 30 minutes of laying in bed, we were both still awake. We were completely exhausted and it was nearly midnight, but neither of us could sleep.  DH called down to the front desk to ask if they had softer, thinner pillows.  He said he didn’t know and would ask housekeeping and they would send some up if they had it.  Well that didn’t work at all because we had our ‘privacy’ door tag out for the night which said they staff would not knock on the door if displayed. We explained that and asked him to call us back after he spoke to housekeeping.  Ten minutes later, he didn’t call back yet so DH called again and the guy said they don’t have any other pillows.  How is that possible?  Most hotels have either a small variety of pillows or a standard, generic pillow that is likely to appeal to a lot of people.  This pillow was very thick and hard and likely uncomfortable for many of their guests.  With no other options, I tried to get comfortable, but ultimately I was awake much more than I slept that night.  DH and I planned to purchase a travel pillow tomorrow if we could find one because there was no way we would survive two more sleepless nights like this!  

Step Tracker Daily Total: 23,358 steps; 9.4 miles

Planning Phase

Late last year, Southwest Airlines offered a great incentive to sign up for their credit card: California residents who charged at least $1000 in 3 months would earn a free companion pass for the year of 2018, in addition to the 40,000 bonus miles normally awarded.  We fly on Southwest several times a year, so this is a great deal for us. We wanted to make the most of the promotion, so we decided to plan a long weekend trip for Memorial Day Weekend (MDW).  Looking through the list of cities with direct flights from San Jose, we decided Chicago would be the perfect place to visit.  I have never been there before, and DH has only been there to run the marathon so he has not done any of the touristy activities.  On top of that, we would be traveling in late May, when the weather in Chicago is usually warm.  There’s no chance I’d voluntarily visit there during the winter!

Southwest offers 2 direct flights a day from San Jose to Midway. The afternoon flight doesn’t land until 9pm, so that would get us in too late to do any touring on Friday.  The earlier flight lands at 12:45pm, leaving us half a day to enjoy the city after checking into our hotel.  The one dilemma is that this flight leaves San Jose at 6:30am.  That means an extremely early wake up call that morning, but I guess it’s not so bad if we adjust our clocks to Central time zone the night before! Haha

Up next, we needed to find a hotel.  We frequently use AirBNB and VRBO for long weekends out of town, but when we have a late evening flight home at the end of the trip, we end up struggling to find a place to store our luggage after checking out in the late morning.  In the past, we have rented a car for the day, stored our luggage in the trunk, and spent the day visiting places a little further from the city center before driving ourselves to the airport when it’s time for our flight home.  This time, we wanted to spend all of our precious touristy minutes in the city center, so renting a car for the day wouldn’t be very convenient.  We decided to book a real hotel for this trip, and then we could leave our luggage at the front desk after checking out on the last morning.  That way, we could spend the whole day enjoying the city, and just retrieve our luggage at the end of the day on our way to the airport.  Our flight home isn’t until 7:50pm on Monday night, so we really will have a full day to explore Chicago.  

We knew it was important to stay at a hotel in the Loop, near public transit and near the touristy things in the city.  After a bit of searching online, we decided to stay at Club Quarters Hotel in Central Loop.  It is a clean, modern, affordable hotel with good ratings from past guests, and it is located in the heart of downtown Chicago, just a few minutes from several lines on the L train.  They also offer free cancellation up to 24 hours prior to arrival, which is always nice reassurance in case anything comes up last minute.

With our flights and hotel all set, it was time to figure out what we wanted to do with our 3 and a half days of touring.  Obviously, we wanted to see all of the highlights like Millennium Park and the giant bean, eat Chicago style hot dogs and deep dish pizza, go to a few museums, and DH really wanted to go to a Cubs game if they were in town this weekend.  A quick Google search confirmed the last item on that list to be a possibility.  Not only are the Cubs scheduled to have several home games over MDW, but they are playing the San Francisco Giants!  Being current Bay Area residents, it will be a toss up on which team we should root for at that game!  There are games scheduled for Friday afternoon (which we can’t attend because it starts right around when our flight lands), and Saturday and Sunday evening. Originally, DH planned to wait until a week or two before the game to look for cheap seats on Stubhub.  One of our friends in California is a big Cubs fan and has season tickets to their games.  He was not planning to go to that game in Chicago over MDW and he offered to sell us his tickets, which DH gladly accepted.  

It was a little overwhelming trying to narrow down which of the touristy things we should do during our limited time in Chicago.  I was looking for ideas on Groupon when I found the City Pass Go Card.  You can purchase the pass for 3, 4, or 5 attractions for a discounted rate, and then Groupon had a sale on the pass so it was a really good deal.  There is a list of 27 attractions and we can pick whichever ones we want to visit at that time (ie: no need to pre-book attractions for a specific day).  This is a great feature because it allows us to be flexible and change the order of our plans in case of rain or whatever.  If you by the pass on the Go Card website, it costs $79, $104, and $119 per person for the 3, 4, and 5 attraction passes. Groupon had the 5 attraction pass on sale for $98 per person, meaning it would cost an average of $20 per activity. Looking through the list of 27 attractions, the 5 that we wanted to do all cost between $24 and $45 per person, so it was a no-brainer to buy the pass!  They sent me a voucher which is good for up to one year after purchase, and then once I activate the pass, I have 30 days to visit the 5 attractions. I’ll hold off on sharing which attractions we visited until we get to that part of the review… ya know, just to add a little suspense!

While looking online for other ideas of things to do in Chicago, I stumbled upon a website for a free walking tour.  We have taken lots of free walking tours both at home in San Francisco and while traveling, and have always had a great experience with knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides.  Free Tours By Foot offers a 2 hour “Riverwalk and History Twilight Tour” from 7 to 9pm.  Here is the description from their website:

Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper and home to one of the world’s most recognizable skylines and the northern section of the Chicago Riverwalk is a great place to experience it from the inside – there’s no need to take an expensive boat cruise. The buildings form the perfect photogenic backdrop when hearing the great stories of the men and women who built them and who built the city of Chicago. We will show you the birthplace of the city and where a terrible massacre took place. You will hear stories of great fortunes and a great fire as well as the incredible story of how Chicagoans re-engineered the flow of their river.  Join Free Tours by Foot as we take a leisurely stroll along the northern reaches of the Chicago River and take in the beautiful architecture, such as the Tribune Building, and learn the stories behind the men and woman who built them. The tour ending point is near Municipal Pier #2 (better known as Navy Pier), where you can easily stroll over to see the sites- including the Ferris wheel. The Pier is filled with delicious Chicago favorites like Garrett’s Popcorn, Chicago style hot dogs (NO ketchup allowed), and of course, a Billy Goat Tavern.

I was able to reserve our spots on the Friday evening tour with their website and I received an email confirmation right away.  This might be a terrible decision considering how early we are waking up that day and how exhausted we may be by the time this tour starts, but I think we’ll be okay to tough it out.  It will be worth it as the tour sounds like a fabulous way to get an overview of the city on our first night in town!

I attempted to research where to find the “best Chicago style deep dish pizza” but ultimately gave up! There are way too many people with different opinions about this topic, and it is impossible to narrow it down to just one or two places that we must try.  Somehow, this didn’t really surprise me considering the same would likely happen if I tried to Google the best place for New York style pizza in Manhattan haha  I did compile a list of a few options that got glowing reviews (both for pizza and for hot dog restaurants), with locations scattered around the city, and we planned to just play it by ear and pick a restaurant that is close by when we are ready to eat.  That wraps up our planning for this whirlwind weekend in the Windy City!