A couple of weeks ago we drove out to Chicago for a visit with my Grandma and while we were there we spent several days downtown..
The first day we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. We thought we would just spend a couple of hours there, but we ended up spending half of the day. There are really so many things to see, it's hard to fit it all in.
The highlights include the U-505, a German U-boat on display that you can tour. It used to be outside, but they brought it inside a couple years ago:
One of my favorite exhibits I remember from my childhood is still there: Baby Chicks!
(Chicks, man!)On the way home our GPS took us on a somewhat scenic route. I'm pretty sure we went way out of the way, but I started to get excited when I started to see street names I remember. We were pretty close to my old neighborhood, Evergreen Park, so we drove my our old house on Homan.
It was hard to believe this was the same house I grew up in, it has changed so much!When we started heading back to Grandma's house, we passed one of Richard's favorite things:
A comic book store!Richard got a really cool Green Lantern baseball cap. He was pretty happy!
On Wednesday we headed back downtown to visit the Art Institute:
On Wednesday we headed back downtown to visit the Art Institute:
The museum is undergoing lots of construction and several galleries were dark. But we were able to see some of our favorite impressionists.
What? Another Comic Book Store???After a interesting (lousy) dinner at a downtown pizza place, we headed over to the Oriental Theater to see Wicked. It was an incredible show (and even made up for the less-than-stellar dinner!)
A very nice passer-by offered to take our picture when he saw us trying to take one of our many self-portraits. This one turned out much better than the one we tried to take!On Thursday we spent most of the day downtown. We spent the morning exploring Millennium Park, home of the famous "Bean" sculpture. I had no idea what to expect and was really shocked at how beautiful it is. The reflection of the sky and skyscrapers is something not to be missed.
The Bean is a tourist magnet. Really cool!After Millennium Park we hopped on one of the free trolleys to head over to the museum campus where you can visit Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum of Natural History. We went to the aquarium and spent lots of time at the dolphin exhibit.
When we were there the Blue Angels were practicing their maneuvers, getting ready for the air show that weekend. It was almost like seeing the show for free (and less crowds).
Then we headed over to the Sears Tower. It was fun, but I think we were getting our fill of the crowds by that point. We headed down to a restaurant in the tower and chilled out before heading back home.We did so much more on our trip and will look forward to heading back to the windy city. I couldn't get over how much the downtown has changed since I lived there. For a large city the people were all so friendly and we felt very safe wandering around. (Well, everyone was friendly except our waiter at the pizza restaurant!)
It was so nice spending time with my Grandma, and we enjoyed our visits with Mike and Lynn, and Maureen, Mike, and Anna. Thanks for making our trip so memorable!
