Chicago!

Chicago is an amazing city when the sun is shining and you are on a tall ship with a pirate that looked like he just got off a Malibu Rum billboard. On the other hand, when it is pouring and you CTA bus driver kicks you off the bus to walk a couple of miles due to rerouting during a run it is a cold place. We spend two days in Chicago and the first is why I will leave a piece of my heart in Chicago. On this day we rode the train from Elgin to Chicago's Union Station. From there we took a bus to the Grayline Double Decker Bus. We rode the bus around and heard interesting facts about the city until about half way through the tour when our stomachs protested. We then caught a bus to Rock N' Roll McDonalds. Now here is my though on this. It was a very cool McDonalds, but the food is not different so not worth double the money which is what I ended up paying. Just about everything on the menu was $1 to $.50 more. If I had it to do again I would have just gone here for an ice cream cone.

We then took another bus to Navy Pier for some family fun by Lake Michigan. We picked up tickets to ride the Lighthouse ride, Wave Swings, Carousel, and Ferris Wheel. Then we went and got tickets to ride Windy the Tall Ship. Their 5 pm show was "Real Pirates Stories." So we got aboard and got seats on the midship and learned about the Pirates that had once sailed on the very lake that we were on. The stories were fascinating and the crew was amazing. My favorite story was about Pirate Fox who imprisoned a entire town and got them to do his bidding for over a year. He was sentenced to death only after he shot a goose a few year later.

After our cruise we headed to dinner at an Italian restaurant where we had our first taste of deep dish. Then headed back to the train to ride back to the hotel. However, we missed our train so we had to wait for the next one. This one was at 10:40 and when we headed to get on their were four police officers barring the way and only allowed boarding twenty minutes before departure. They also did bag checks as we boarded.

Once home we collapsed in bed and got ready for the next day. However, my alarm didn't go off so I awoke forty minutes before we needed to be at the train station and we had not even packed our stuff up yet. So we did a rush job and grabbed McDs breakfast to make it just in time. We got off at Union Station and headed to Chicago. Once we got to Union Station we headed to our bus that would take us to the Museum Campus. As we walked out of Union Station we saw buckets of rain pouring down. We rushed to our bus stop because it was supposed to be there in a few minutes. However, no bus came. Then Blake said he had to use the bathroom. I went into the nearest building to see if they had a public restroom. When I went to the desk the security guard told me that they did not have a public restroom. Also, the door that I had used to access the building was supposed to be locked so another guard was locking it and I would have to exit the side door and walk around the building. Hmphf!

Back at the bus stop the next bus came and we sat happily headed to the planetarium. About three stops away from the planetarium the bus driver asked everyone to get off the bus. He didn't give a reason and only after asking were we given the reason that they were rerouted for the day due to the Taste of Chicago Run/Walk. So I followed a Field Museum volunteer to the Campus and headed back to the planetarium. In the pouring rain. With a seven year old who was wearing flip flops! Once there we headed around the museum in rapid fire style reading only a few plaques in each room. Then we watched a movie about IBEX, a NASA project, and headed to the Shedd Aquarium.

The Shedd was packed and the line to get in was over an hour line. The will call line that we had to stand in to get our tickets was still twenty minutes long. There we knew that we were running out of time fast so we headed directly to the penguins. We did stop briefly to look at the turtles, dolphins, and sea otters. The kids loved and we could have easily spend multiple days in here alone.

At this point we were starving and headed to the Taste of Chicago. We got two pieces of deep dish pizza and everyone was full. I was nervous that the kids would still be starving but they were not even able to finish both pieces. We got a dream cup, orange sherbert and vanilla ice cream to top it off. We all thought that this was great.

This was the end of our day in Chicago so we road the train back and went to the store to get some food for the trip. Unfortunately we pushed our luck and ended up putting our tent up in the dark. Then found that I had lost my phone. We finally after an hour of searching ended up finding it at the front office on the ground. The only thing that I can assume is that I knocked it out when I got the tent site information. Then fell asleep to the sound of rustling wind in an open field; For there were no other campers with us that night.