We woke up on Day Three to find that Chicago was experiencing a severe weather setback. Apparently, the city was confused and decided to bring winter back.....in June. It was downright cold! Admittedly, I have lived in the southwest part of the country all of my life, so I am a cold weather wimp. The high for the day was 50 degrees. The sky was overcast and a cold drizzle fell from the clouds all morning. Yuck! I am very glad I decided to throw a jacket in my bag at the last minute because I needed it! Regardless of the cooler temps, we decided to proceed with our plan of taking an architectural boat tour of downtown Chicago. We boarded our boat entitled The First Lady of Chicago and off we sailed down the river. Our tour guide was a docent from the Chicago Architecture Society, and she was fabulous. Best tour guide I've ever had. She gave so much good information peppered with interesting facts and funny stories. She was great.
A great view of the city. The building on the right with the curved shape and green glass has been voted "Favorite Downtown Building" by Chicagoans for the last several years as it reflects the city skyline as well as the colors and motion of the Chicago River.
I had a hot caramel latte in my hands to keep me warm here.
PS-- See the skyline reflected in that building I told you about? Cool, huh?
This photo is from later on in the tour. The sun had gone away completely, the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped. Our tour guide was even apologizing for the rude weather.
The building behind me is interesting because the German architect who designed it had a specific motto, "There are no right angles in nature, therefore no right angles in my buildings."
I like its curvy, space age vibe.
The tall black building in the middle is the famous Willis Tower (formerly known as The Sears Tower)
After the boat tour we went to Margie's Candies, a Chicago staple. Opened in 1921, The Beatles ate here as well as The Rolling Stones. They make all their candy in-house, and they are famous for their hot fudge sundaes. They also make their own hot fudge sauce which was to. die. for.
SOOOO good. And we picked up a box of candies to bring home to my Dad and Sally since they kept our kids part of the time we were gone. We ate this around 4:00 in the afternoon and then went straight to dinner. Yes, we did dessert before dinner with no kids around! Good thing we did a LOT of walking to burn off all the calories we were eating! Sunday night we declared our official "anniversary dinner." We went to a place called The Purple Pig. It had a very funky atmosphere which I liked. It was interesting in that the portion sizes are small, so you are meant to order several things and share with whomever is at the table. It was great!
Monday morning after we checked out of our hotel, we made one last run into Chicago. The weather decided to be nice again, so we spent a lot of time outside. Here's a picture of The Water Tower, one of the few structures to survive the Great Fire of 1871.
For lunch we grabbed a Chicago hot dog which has relish, peppers, onion, a pickle, a tomato slice and celery salt on a poppy seed bun. It was good! After lunch, we made a beeline to the airport where after an hour delay, we hopped on a plane and made it home to hug our kiddos' necks.
Although, we had a lot of fun and really enjoyed our time alone, we sure missed our three munchkins.
There's truly no place like home.
No comments:
Post a Comment