Chi-Town - Take 1: Intro to the City

For our 5th anniversary we drove over to Chicago for the weekend. It certainly doesn't hurt that we currently live only 4 hours away from Chi-Town, so we've been wanting to make the trip since we got here. We figured the weather was only going to get worse the rest of the year and we don't technically know how long we are going to be in Cedar Rapids, so it was really good timing. I will let you know now that our weekend trip will be a multi-post segment, there is just TOO much to share. 

On Friday afternoon, we set off at about 4pm...John had to work that day. In fact he had been working a TON that whole week, so it was a very good time for our family to get away together. We had a quick stop for dinner somewhere in Illinois. Just in case you are curious, out here in the Midwest, when driving from one city to the next, there is not a whole lot in the middle. Meaning, you can drive for-ev-er and not pass a single exit that has any restaurants. Period. It's crazy. 

We arrived to our hotel around 9pm that night. Karis was asleep, but woke up quickly when we pulled up to the hotel. We were staying downtown, so it was loud and traffic was heavy. The valet guy at the front was nice enough to let us keep the car there for a minute while we ran up and checked in, since we had a sweet sleeping baby with us. Since it was late and Karis was asleep we didn't do anything Friday night. I ran up to the room and got her back to sleep while John got the car parked.

Our hotel was in a fabulous location, it was on the north side of the river, almost exactly parallel with Navy Pier and about 4 blocks west of Michigan Ave. On Saturday morning we decided we would just take a walk down Michigan Ave. and head in the direction of Lincoln Park Zoo. They were having a kids' Halloween event at the zoo that we wanted to go to, plus that zoo is free. Score.

This was my first visit to Chicago, and I have to say I was really impressed. It's a very clean city, with TONS of gorgeous gardening all over the place. Like really nice garden-scapes. I told John it reminded me of the Biltmore Estate, all over the city. I LOVED that fall scenes that they had along Michigan Ave.

So cute, right?! Aren't those pumpkins great!

This is at the bottom of the John Hancock Building. We had to run in the Best Buy down here to get a new camera battery charger. :) 

And, of course, a look up the Hancock Building. It's the 2nd highest building in Chicago, behind the Sears Tower.

Some more as we continued to walk along.


And a storefront. I can't even remember which one this was, because that part was irrelevant to me. I just liked the display. Maybe Louis Vuitton?

At this point we were going to catch a bus up to the zoo. In fact John was inside a store trying to make change so we could get bus fare. I was standing in the bus stop looking at the map and decided it just wasn't that much farther to walk. So, when he came out I convinced him we should just walk. #1 - we could get some good exercise, and #2 - we could save our money. Win-win folks!
So, we crossed over Lakeshore Drive and walked along the beach.

 And by walk along the beach, I mean we took that path you see on the left. :) We were pushing a baby.

I've got to say Chicago must rank pretty high in cities with most number of runners per capita. I mean TONS of runners.
Eventually we made it to Lincoln Park. And this was our view back on the city.

I made a concerted effort to try to get more pictures of the 3 of us on this trip. We seem to always get TONS of Karis, but I want to have tangible memories of all of us. Usually this means one of us is doing the long arm stretch, but hey, you do what works, right?!

Next time, we'll share about our trip to the zoo.