Chicago III

I'm in my recliner enjoying a tiny bit of a break while Aliyah works on her schoolwork, so it's time to re-visit our Chicago trip. I hate that I always take so long to keep up with the posts.

Last time, I left off with several pictures of some buildings and such that we saw on our double-decker bus ride. I am only posting one more picture from that ride (although I have many more).

These people were standing right outside the Sears Tower. Obviously, they couldn't see me zoom in and take their picture from atop the bus, but I found it rather interesting I suppose. At first I almost wondered if they were people dressed up to play a part in some skit or something, but I think they are the real deal. I don't have a picture of this, however while on our way from dinner one night, we saw this woman all dressed up with hair like I have never seen. I mean, this was a creation and a half. It was like 4 times the size of her head. She was at a hotel getting ready to get in to a car or limo or something. I have no idea if she was in a play or singing at the Opera or what...surely people don't just have hair that large. It was all done up on top of her head. All we could figure was it must be very HEAVY to hold up!!
To finish up our tour that day, we saw where Oprah now lives (she used to live in the Ritz Carlton), but moved a few blocks over. She now has a magnificent view of Lake Michigan. The very last thing pretty much was trip down Oak St. Oak Street is Chicago's version of Rodeo Drive. It has all high-end--very high end shops such as Prada, Harry Winston, Kate Spade, Jimmy Choo, Vera Wang etc... Most of these shops require an appointment

We went back to our hotel and changed to go to the beach. The city had come to life a bit more and the boats & yachts were all out enjoying the PERFECTLY HOT weather on Lake Michigan. Labor Day was 94 in Chicago and their hottest day of the summer. The beach was hopping and people were enjoying the water. We soaked up some of those last rays of summer and swam around. Really, the setting is unique. You have the city skyline on one side with the Hancock buildling in perfect view and then beautiful water as far as the eye can see. The water really does look like an ocean. With all of the boats dotting the water, it makes for a gorgeous picture. I didn't take my camera to the beach since I didn't have anyone to watch it while I played in the water. After several hours, we caught the trolley and went back to our hotel. It was time to get ready for dinner. We walked to the Weber Grill and ate in the covered patio area. The ladies sitting next to us told us that our little ladies were very well-behaved and cute. That was nice to hear. The food was beyond delicious!

Following our dinner, we set out on foot to go to Millennium Park as well as the Buckingham Fountains. It was quite a trek, and we were amazed at how the girls walked such a long part of it (even Keirah). On the way there, we walked along the Chicago River and took in some of the beauty of it all. I took several pictures.



At Millennium Park, we enjoyed the fountain and the "bean". Buckingham Fountains are located in Grant Park which is a few blocks down from Millennium Park. They look gorgeous with the changing lights at night, but they also shoot up higher in the day. I have included pictures of the fountains at day and night.

Following the trip to the parks, my camera was dead. The shots at Buckingham Fountains were not exactly as I would have liked, however I had to basically turn the camera on and click. That is how dead it was! We trekked back to the hotel. We saw them doing some major work at the Jay Pritzker pavilion in MP (picture above as the massive steel going everywhere). We wondered what they were setting up for--turned out to be the Oprah show we would attend a few days later. We grabbed some drinks at the corner grocery right by our hotel and took our girls so they could go to bed after the long walk! A wonderful day to celebrate Labor Day!