Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 2

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 1

So we left off with the Yankees losing against the White Sox. We headed back to the hotel and spotted the bar, which looks amazing at night:

The "wall" is a sheet of glass, as are the shelves. It was called the "Big Bar", and with good reason. My $13 pineapple martini was HUGE. So huge, in fact, that I didn't even finish it (though it was delicious and I highly recommend it). After that, we went back up to our room for some much needed sleep.

The next morning we came down with a game plan: Millennium Park, lunch at the John Hancock Center, Michigan Ave, and then get back on the road to head to Urbana, IL. On the way out of the hotel I caught a shot of the Big Bar in the daylight:

While still quite impressive, it's just stunning at night.

We walked a few blocks down to Millennium Park and just enjoyed the scenery. The park was full of moms with strollers and babies, and I was instantly jealous of the fantastic childhoods these children were having. How great would it be to pack up a bag and go sit in Millennium Park with my kids? Then I remembered the insanely cold winters and everything evened out. We'll just have to visit with the kids. In the summer. A lot.

The first stop was the Bean. I don't know why, but the Bean is my favorite. I took about a dozen shots of it, but I'll leave you with just one:

The second stop in Millennium Park was the water feature. I have no idea what this is really called, but it's a magnet for every baby and toddler in the Windy City. There are two huge "wall" structures that leak water down to the brick ground. The bricks on the ground are specially designed to pool about an inch and a half of water on the ground for kids to splash in. The "walls" are designed with "bricks" that project images. Sometimes it's an image of water, similar to a babbling brook. Sometimes is this guy:

He also blinks. And spits water:

I took my shoes off and splashed around for a few minutes. It was so nice to just walk around, enjoy the weather, and people watch. We sat on the steps (lower left in the pic above) for a while and watched the moms chase their kids around.

After a while we took a walk down to the water:


We sat here for a while, too, just enjoying the sound of water lapping against the boats and the ringing of the little bells at the tops of the masts. It was so peaceful, which was funny, considering the hustle and bustle of the heart of the city was just blocks away.

We also took a walk by the Buckingham Fountain. It's situated in a huge open space:

I guess my favorite thing about Chicago is the fact that it is a huge city with so much green space. It's so clean. Everything is well maintained. There is so much history. Oh, and you can get lunch with amazing views of the city.

Lunch at the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Center was fantastic! Here' the John Hancock (the black building):


And here's the view from our table:

Note the beach, directly below us:

Again, with a view like this, how do you not order Champagne with your lunch? Exactly. Along with my Champagne, I had lobster bisque to start, and the blackened salmon sandwich. Ryan also had the lobster bisque, and went with the Black Angus sirloin sandwich. Everything was amazing - the bisque was completely worth the $7 a bowl. God, I could really go for some of that lobster bisque right now.

After lunch, we walked around the restaurant to get shots of the view from the other sides:

The tall building to the right of the picture is the Sears Tower:

I could sit up there and just look out the window all day. I would love to have dinner there some day, though I imagine it's quite expensive (seeing as our lunch clocked in at $70, including tip). Some day.

Also some day? We're totally bringing our little girls to American Girl Place. Lucky me, this store happens to be located directly across the street from the John Hancock Center, so I dragged Ryan through it, grinning like an idiot and telling him the back stories on all of the dolls.

Actually, I should note that "all of the dolls" strictly includes Addy, Felicity, Molly, Samantha, and my own girl, Kirsten. Hmmm... upon further research, it would appear that AG retired Samantha. WTF, American Girl? Anyway, I'm 27 years old and I dragged Ryan through the store like a 10 year old. Whatever. How do you not love them:

Those are all Kirsten, in case you're not familiar with the AG collection. And no worries, it's actually not so secret that Ryan enjoyed every second of this.... he's going to be a great dad. Plus, I promised him we could go to the Lego Store, so how mad could he really be?

The Lego Store was very cool; there were tons of huge creations, including a pirate:

And a mini-John Hancock Center:
For reference, here's a pic of the real John Hancock Center (and Water Tower Place, which is where American Girl Place and the Lego Store are located):

We also took a quick walk through Tiffany's, because who doesn't love to see lots and lots of sparkly things? I also dropped lots of hints on this, which would make a fantastic "thanks for birthing my baby" gift :-)

Then we jumped in the car and headed south. We saw lots of this:

2.5 hours later we arrived in Urbana, IL, home of some of our best friends in the world. Recap to come!

Road Trip Recap: Chicago, Day 1

After months of planning, the road trip went off without a hitch.... and now that it's over, I'm going to do what any self-respecting blogger would do: RECAP! I'm going to break it up over a few parts, cause I have TONS of pictures and they're all pretty fun - so we'll do a post per city plus one for the extras (tips, tricks, and things we learned). First up is Chicago (which, for sanity sake, is split into 2 posts - one per day)!

I guess the best way to start a recap is at the begining, but the 11 hour drive from Maryland to Merrillville, Indiana was pretty uneventful. We got in our car, we drove (and drove, and drove) through a ton of corn fields, and ended up at a pretty sweet Radisson for the night. Even though we totally still had enough time/daylight to make it to Chicago, we planned on staying in Merrillville for 2 reasons:

1. Chicago is expensive. Instead of paying for dinner & a hotel (plus $48/night for parking) in Chicago on the first night, we payed $50 (thank you, Priceline) for a kick ass hotel and $40 for dinner and drinks at the hotel restaurant.


2. We wanted to relax. Seeing as Chicago is my favorite city ever, I wouldn't have been able to sit in the hotel and relax, knowing the city was just outside my room door. So we decided to stay about an hour outside of Chicago (Merrillville) to really get into vacation mode. And relax we did: we arrived, sat outside at a Irish pub for dinner, hit up the hot tub, and spent the rest of the evening at the hotel bar watching the Yankees game and drinking beers (the beer will become a repeat occurance).

So on Thursday morning we woke up bright and early to hit the road.... and about an hour later, we saw this:The beautiful Chicago skyline from the Dan Ryan Expressway! And more skyline as we inched closer:
After getting settled into the Hyatt Regency Hotel (Pricelined for $82, including tax. Normal price is $149 plus 15.4% tax.), the first order of business was finding lunch. We walked around for a few minutes and spotted the South Water Kitchen, which had an aborable outdoor bistro seating area. We took advantage of the gorgeous weather, snagged a table outside, and ordered the "Picnic Lunch". Our lunch came out with a red and white checked table cloth, with the food neatly packed into Chinese food boxes and stacked inside a picnic basket. It was fabulous. So fabulous, in fact, that I ordered a glass of Champagne and completely didn't think to have the server take our picture.

Then we took a walk over to the Sears Tower, enjoying the scenery along the way:

And finally we were outside the Sears Tower. I looked at Ryan and I asked him if he was nervous about the Skywalk. He shook his head, looked at me weirdly, and said, "No, why would I be?"

Um, because in 45 minutes (the line was soooooooo long) you'll be standing 103 stories over the Chicago sidewalk in one of these:

Sure enough, we got to the top, looked out over Chicago, and he says "Wow, that's freaky". I, on the other hand, loved it. After some coaxing (from me) and a not so gentle push (from an older guy standing near the ledge), Ryan joined me for a photo:


And here's what is right below our feet:

The view from the Sears Tower is amazing:

After the Sears Tower, we took a quick ride in the subway up to U.S. Cellular Field for a Yankees game (White Sox, for the home fans). The main attraction? Chicago style hot dogs. If you've never had one, you have no idea what you're missing. If you have, you know it's like Heaven on a poppy seed bun.

OK, so back to the game.... The stadium is really nice - super clean, very open, tons of great hot dogs, and a great view of the skyline:

Here's the view from our original seats, during batting practice:

About 30 minutes after this picture was taken, the huge tarp got rolled out over the field in anticipation of a rain delay. Sure enough, it started to pour, so we moved over to the third base side, under the over hang. I can't even tell you the number of hot dogs and beers consumed during the rain delay... there really is nothing like a (bunch of) $7 Bud Light at the ball park (well, there is something better, but I'll save that for the St. Louis post). I'm not sure what the final score was; I just know that the Yankees lost, which means fire works for the White Sox:


OK, that's probably enough for now... tomorrow I'll catch you up on the hotel bar, Millenium Park, our super fancy John Hancock lunch, and maybe even the American Girl store, if you're lucky!