Day 7 - Chicago, Day 1

Miles Driven: 0

 

I am running so far behind on this blog. As expected, I'm not getting much time to sit with the laptop and type so it's been a struggle to keep up. I hope to be all caught up in the next couple of days.

 

By time we got to Chicago, it was nearly 2am. The directions sent us on a highway that turned out to be a small two-lane road in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure why we got off 80, but there were not many other cars around us now. The road was marked as a toll road on our directions so I knew we would be expected to pay a toll at some point. What I didn't know was that in Illinois (and Indiana), toll roads mean that you pay a toll over and over again with collection booths stationed every so many miles all along the highway. I would have been irritated except for the fact that I was so tired and the tolls gave me something to think about and watch for along the way, helping me to stay awake. Everyone was already asleep in the car, but I kept busy trying to figure out which lane to get in and counting out change in the car. Oddly enough the tolls were all different amounts: $3.60, $1.70, $0.50. Even if you got off the toll road you had to pay a partial toll on the offramp. They must make a killing on these roads.

 

Our hotel was in Central Chicago and while the property itself was very run down, it was clean and safe, protected from the surrounding streets. We woke up the next morning at 11am Central Time. It was nice to get some extra rest. Our first task of the day was to find some breakfast. I've been using a TripAdvisor app, so I searched for restaurants in the area and there was one right around the corner that was rated #12 of the nearly 2800 rated restaurants in the city, and they served breakfast all day (Yay!). It was called Yolk. Jessey had something called the Tour De France, which was french toast in three different flavors: banana nut bread topped with bananas, sweet orange bread topped with strawberries, and lemon poppyseed bread topped with blueberries. I hardly even saw it before it was gone. We definitely liked our breakfast and wished we could have gone back for another meal. Their menu was amazing!

 

K's S'mores pancakes

 

After breakfast we headed across the street to the Moody Bible Institute, where my sister went to college. They offered us a tour but I think it was more aimed at prospective students and I didn't think the girls were up for it. We opted instead for visitor badges and went to check out the school's museum and wandered the hallways a bit before heading back outside. The quad was full of kids, but the buildings were pretty quiet today.

 

Playing the old air-pump organ in the museum

 

Next we headed over to the John Hancock building on Michigan Avenue, taking a little detour inside the American Girl doll store that was across the street. I'd never been inside an AG store and I was amazed at the amount of accessories and outfits you can buy for those dolls. We would find out later on our Chicago Pedway tour that the AG store is the most profitable store (with the highest revenue) on all of Michigan Avenue.  That's no surprise considering we also found out that you can take your doll there to have her hair cut and styled for $95, or you can have a tea party with her for $250. Crazy.

 

This was less than half of the downstairs part of the store

 

We took the elevator to the 94th floor of the John Hancock building and marveled at the speed it travels as our eardrums popped again and again. I think we counted about 30-35 seconds for the 94 floor ascent.There were hardly any people around in the middle of the day on a Wednesday so it was quiet and peaceful on the observation deck and my kids had full use of all of the computer screens, allowing them to identify the buildings they saw and look around the city some more. One side of the deck had a movie playing that talked about the design and engineering innovations involved in the making of the building. It also talked about the residents who lived in the apartments inside the building, noting that some of them don't leave the building for weeks at a time because it has everything they need inside of it: work, home, restaurants, stores, and even a post office. That's definitely different! While we were up there, K decided to try her hand at washing the windows. I think she did a pretty good job! :)

 

 

After we made it back down to the first floor, we headed to L'Appetito, the cafe where my sister used to work to see if we could find her favorite cookies to send to her. They were chocolate spice and lemon cookies, both with vanilla frosting, and we found them! We bought one of each to try ourselves and then we packaged the rest of them up and mailed them off to her in Phoenix, hoping they wouldn't melt too badly or get crumbled to bits, but knowing that they would still fare better in the mail for two days than in our car for 2 1/2 weeks.

 

 

Our next stop was going to be Navy Pier, but we decided to walk down Michigan Avenue and look at all the shops there. I also loved seeing all of the beautiful tulips on the city streets.

 

 

Navy Pier was pretty empty being that it was the middle of the day on a Wednesday but we enjoyed ourselves, taking advantage of the Groupon I had bought before we left home for cheap ride tickets. C & K went on the swing ride all 5 times. J & A went on the swings once, then played mini-golf, and then gave their ride tickets to C & K to go on the swings some more.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed Navy Pier and walked all the way down both sides admiring the lake and the skyline in the distance. It was very peaceful and beautiful.

 

 

We had planned to eat dinner at Ed Debevic's, a local restaurant where the waiters and waitresses are rude to you instead of polite. I remembered going there when my sister started college and I thought my kids would get a kick out of it.

 

 

The waitress yelled at K when she didn't take her menu fast enough and it scared her and A. They were both terrified of her and watched around the restaurant nervously making sure she didn't come near our table. A kept asking me to order for her because she was afraid to talk to her, and of course C thought the whole thing was hilarious.

 

Throughout dinner she became increasingly rude and insulting as the girls became more comfortable with the teasing and started laughing along. Every time our waitress walked away from the table, C exclaimed "I love that girl!" and she and Jessey both said they thought it would be so much fun to work there. The most memorable insults from the evening were her calling K 'tiny', saying that C was eating 'the baby chicken fingers', calling Jessey 'princess' because of his long hair (and saying he'd never get a girlfriend), asking A if she was actually a 50-year old man when she ordered the Chinese chicken salad, and telling me that my children were horrible and that she hoped we never came back again. C wanted to get a photo of her before we left and even though she yelled at her several times to 'Go away!", she eventually turned to face her and let her snap this photo.