Day 5 – Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Wednesday was our last full day in Chicago.  The plan at the beginning of the day was to go to the Shedd Aquarium and then Navy Pier that evening for fireworks.  We went to the Shedd Aquarium but it decided to pour rain about the time we were walking to Navy Pier so we hopped in a cab and skipped the fireworks.

Outside of the Shedd Aquarium, there was a hot dog stand so we ate our obligatory Chicago Style Hot Dog.  Well, I didn’t.  I had mustard & onions on mine.  A couple of girls with us did get the Chicago Style – mustard, ketchup, onions, peppers, pickle, relish, and probably something else that I can’t think of right now.  The birds were very interested in our food.

Wednesday evening we went to Gino’s East Pizza.  We tried Giordana’s Sunday, which is a stuffed pizza.  Gino’s is a deep dish pizza.  I loved Gino’s!  It is definitely the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.

Click here to view the photo album from Chicago.

Day 4 – Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The first location on Tuesday’s agenda was the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower.  The Willis Tower is the tallest building in the western hemisphere.  It was called the Sears Tower until a year ago.  I still want to call it the Sears Tower, mostly because that’s the most popular and recognized name of the tower.

A relatively new feature of the Willis Tower Skydeck is The Ledge.  One side of the building’s skydeck has 4 sets of plexiglas boxes protrude out from the building.  You can stand on the ledges and find yourself essentially standing over 103 floors of air.  I didn’t experience The Ledge.  My sisters & mom did, though.

After we left the Willis Tower, we took a taxi down to Chinatown.  I’ve never been to NYC or anywhere with a Chinatown so I had no idea what to expect.  The ones that had were pretty disappointed.  They expected some good deals but over half of the shops were groceries and/or restaurants.  All I know is that it was HOT.  Some of the shops we went into weren’t even air conditioned.

Click here to view my photo album from Chicago.

Day 2 – Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy Birthday, America!

On Sunday, we decided to take a 90 minute boat tour down the Chicago River and onto Lake Michigan.  This would allow us to see the sights.  I don’t think we quite thought it through as thoroughly as we should have.  It was HOT in Chicago.  We started our boat tour around 11 and were on the top deck of a floating sun/heat magnet.  The heat was pretty unbearable for the beginning of the tour.  When we got out onto Lake Michigan, though, the wind picked up and it really felt good.  I did get a bit of a sunburn, though.

On to the tour…

The tour took us down the Chicago River.  The tour guide told us stories and pointed out buildings of interest.  It’s definitely a different perspective to see some of the buildings that way as opposed to on the street walking by.

To get out onto Lake Michigan from the river, you have to go through a lock.  It was interesting to see the lock system at work.  Lake Michigan is 2 feet taller than the Chicago River.  When the lock into the lake opened (after the lock into the river closed), water came rushing into the lock and we were able to watch the water level rise on the dock.  (Likewise, we could see the water level falling when we were leaving the lake.)

Lake Michigan was gorgeous.  It was like you were on an ocean because there was literally water as far as you could see.  It was a gorgeous color of blue.  Like I mentioned above, the wind really picked up (as did the waves) when we got out on the lake.  I would have loved to have been able to jump in the water for a swim.  The view of the Chicago skyline from the lake was awesome.

I definitely recommend a boat tour if you are in Chicago.

After the boat tour, we were all pretty hungry so we went to eat at Giordano’s Pizza.  We were all looking forward to eating some Chicago style pizza.  Giordana’s didn’t disappoint.  It is a stuffed pizza.  Basically, the layers are…crust, cheese (and lots of it), crust, topping (i.e. pepperoni), sauce.  The sauce was a marinara-style sauce, really tomatoee.  (Is tomatoee a word?  I might have just made that up.  I basically meant that it tasted mostly like tomatoes and not many spices.)

Here is a link to the photo album from my trip to Chicago.

My sister Shelby won a state competition (& a trip to nationals) for a high school club she is a member of.  The national competition/convention was in Chicago.  Mom, Lindsey, & I decided to go along and make it a girls’ vacation while we were at it.  We left Saturday July 3rd and came back Thursday July 8th.  We packed a lot of sight seeing (& heat) into the 4 full days we were there.  I’m going to do a blog entry for each day so I don’t have to pack several stories and a lot of photos into one entry.

Day 1 – Saturday, July 3, 2010

We got into town late afternoon (after having a slight airplane delay).  We checked into our hotel and decided to walk down to Millennium Park (which was only a couple of blocks from our hotel).  We saw Pritzker Pavilion and the Bean (actually called Cloud Gate).  Everyone had fun taking pictures of themselves in the Bean.

The one aggravation we had the entire trip revolved around paying for meals.  There were a total of 9 people in our party.  1 person was not paying for all 9 meals.  However, almost every restaurant we ventured into required us to submit one payment instead of the 6 splits we needed.  It became a math session for some of us to sit and calculate how much everyone’s meal, tax, & tip amounted to and then to try to come up with the right amount of cash (because no one dared put the whole thing on a debit or credit card).  Is it really so strange to want to pay for our own meals?  I’ve never encountered this problem at home.  (As a matter of fact, I went out to eat with my family last night.  We had 13 people and most of us paid separately.)

Click here to see the photo album from my trip to Chicago.

My friend Penni mentioned to me in early spring that the Backstreet Boys were going to be pretty close to her hometown in concert June 5 at Wild Adventures in Valdosta, GA.  Penni is a HUGE Backstreet Boys fan.  I had been wanting to visit her in Georgia at some point in the near future and decided I might as well come at that time and go to the concert with her.  Our friend Karah was gracious enough to get us front row (and center) seats.  (Thanks, Karah!!!)

I’ve never considered myself that much of a Backstreet Boys fan.  In high school and early college when they were at the peak of popularity, I listened to and liked their music.  I was more of an N Sync fan, though.  The concert didn’t make me like BSB better than NSync (sorry Penni & Karah) but I did come home and add quite a bit of their music to my iPod to listen to.

The highlight of the night wasn’t necessarily even music related.  Brian Littrell’s 7 year old son Baylee came out on stage after the opening act.  The crowd was already going nuts in anticipation.  Baylee came out and simply said…”Are you ready for the Backstreet Boys?  Here are Nick, AJ, Howie, and <insert pause> my Daddy.”  It was adorable and the crowd went crazy!

The worst part of the night was my camera situation.  I didn’t want to lug both a point & shoot and my DSLR camera through the airport while traveling so I opted to just bring my DSLR.  I wasn’t allowed to use it at the concert, though.  The photos in this entry are courtesy of my iPhone.  Penni & Karah are sharing their photos with me but it isn’t quite the same.  Lesson learned.