Trip to Chicago

For our third and final trip this month (it's been a busy month!) Ryan and I went to Chicago from Aug. 19 to Aug. 23 while the kids went to my parents house.

The purpose of our trip was to attend the wedding of a good friend of mine who now lives in Chicago. As neither Ryan nor I had ever been there before, we figured we'd turn a one-day wedding into a long weekend so that we'd get a chance to do some sightseeing.

Unfortunately, for reasons I don't know, six days before the wedding, my friend and her fiancée called it off. (I've since talked to my friend by e-mail and she's doing 'ok', I guess.) So, Ryan and I were left with the decision -- three days before we're scheduled to leave -- whether to go or not. In the end, we decided to go -- after all, we had non-refundable flights, the time booked off and the sitter's booked up. So we went.

And we had a great time.

We got there on Thursday afternoon and just wandered around downtown near our hotel. For those who know Chicago, our hotel was right on Wabash in The Loop, meaning it was right next to the El and we could walk to just about anything downtown. And over the next four days, we did a lot of walking.

That afternoon, we wandered around Millennium Park and Grant Park before finding dinner and drinks.

The next morning, we wandered over to the Chicago Tribune building. It was built in 1925 and it quite beautiful. And, in its wall are stones from famous landmarks all over the world -- Berlin Wall, Great Wall of China, the White House, Edinburgh Castle, etc. And one such stone we found was from Miraflores Locks in Panama. This gave us quite a laugh, because six years ago, when we were in Panama, we drove around for a long while in search of this lock. We gave up, having never found it. So now, we've touched a piece of it! Later that morning, we went on an architecture boat cruise up the Chicago river. Chicago has a really fascinating architecture -- something that interests us both. The tour guide explained the story of all the buildings along our route. It was really interesting. It was also incredibly hot as we baked in the 95F sun on that boat.

That afternoon, instead of going to Navy Pier, as we had planned (we decided it was just too hot), we did a little shopping along the Magnificant Mile and then headed over to the Sears Tower (or Willis Tower now). It was interesting, but when you live in the Toronto and have been up the CN Tower, it's all the same. It even has a glass floor-type thing like the CN Tower, except, in this case, it's called the Ledge and it's a glass box that sticks out from the side of the building.

On Saturday, we walked out to the Shedd Aquarium but got there to discover it was an almost two hour wait just to get in to buy tickets. So we nixed that idea, and instead rented bikes and rode along the waterfront for a couple of hours. Chicago has really beautiful waterfront trails (about 18 miles worth).

On Sunday, we had tickets to the Cubs game at Wrigley Field. And although the Cubs got smoked (the final score was 16-5 for Atlanta) it was a lot of fun. Watching a game at Wrigley Field is nothing like watching a game at the SkyDome. It's much more intimate and it's not showy -- there's no big screen or music playing. And the field is right there in the middle of a neighbourhood. So much so, that the four-storey businesses across the street have put bleachers on their roofs and people buy tickets to sit there.

As we were childless for the weekend, Sunday night (as did the other nights) involved a drink (or four).

We flew home on Monday afternoon and now it's back to reality. A month of vacationing was a lot of fun -- but it's nice to know we don't have to unpack, do laundry and repack again.