I had good intentions of keeping the blog current while we were traveling but somehow the days go by and I don't get around to it. So here is the rest of our two weeks in Chicago, which was mostly spent walking around the city or just hanging out in the condo appreciating the views.
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| Low clouds obscuring Sears Tower, now called Willis Tower |
On one of our walks we checked out Chicago's most famous public art. |
| Calder's Flamingo |
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| Chicago by Juan Miro |
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| Chagall's Four Seasons mosaic |
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| The Picasso at Daley Plaza |
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| Monument with Standing Beast by Jean Dubuffet |
Some random photos and thoughts: |
| Advertising a COVID testing site |
Speaking of COVID, Jim had a sore throat and congestion for a couple days while we were there and decided to walk to this place for a free test, which thankfully was negative. They did both a rapid and PCR test and had him swab his own nasal passages, which we thought was interesting.
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Our good buddy, Sydney. We grew quite fond of him over the two weeks we were there.
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| Farmer's market at Daley Plaza, one of many small local farmer's markets around town. |
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| Lakefront trail along Lake Michigan with separate bike and pedestrian lanes. |
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| View of Old Town from our table at Happy Camper Pizza |
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| Hostess center at Happy Camper. The vegan pizza and beer were both excellent so we went twice. |
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| One of the lovely Old Town streets |
The day before we left we finally got around to taking a 90 minute architectural boat tour of the city, which came highly recommended. It was really informative and entertaining, and always fun to get a different perspective from the water.
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| Hillary, our tour guide, in front of The Merchandise Mart |
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| Passing under one of many low bridges |
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| Riverwalk |
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| Wrigley Building and Chicago Tribune |
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| Nice day for a boat ride with the overcast skies |
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| St. Regis condos, starting at $1 million for a studio |
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| Marina City condos, a much cheaper alternative to the St. Regis |
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| By the end of the tour we both had sore necks from so much looking up. |
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| Canal St railroad bridge, a vertical lift bridge |
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| Waterfront park in Chinatown |
We had a great time being temporary high-rise residents in Chicago, although it would have been better had the COVID numbers not been escalating while we were there. On our last weekend Lollapalooza was taking place, which brought over 100,000 people to town. We tried to avoid the busiest parts of town, like Michigan Ave., but there were more people everywhere we walked. Damn COVID.
Next up, five days on the island and a rather striking change of scenery.
Damn COVID indeed! Chicago is on our return list for next summer and I've loved seeing all your pics of this beautiful city. The boat tour looks so cool! I had no idea they swim right off the sidewalk-like lake edge in town!!
ReplyDeleteThe architectural boat tour is well worth it. This is the one we took since they had a great senior discount. https://toursandboats.com/experience/chicagos-best-90-minute-architecture-boat-tour/
DeleteWe were also surprised by the swimmers. They actually have lanes marked and we saw people swimming there every time we walked by. Water temp was around 73, a bit cool in my opinion, but about as warm as it gets.
Chicago is such a cool city! We visited two years in a row, but only for one day each time. We were camped at Indiana Dunes State Park and took the train into the city. We took the architectural boat tour and did a walking tour of the city and just spent hours exploring, but I've always thought it would be fun to spend more time there.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great adventure you're having, cat sitting and traveling. Sydney is such a handsome kitty! I would love to do that someday...but could we bring Magnolia? 😻
As long as you have Magnolia I think your petsitting days are on hold!
DeleteWe are glad we got to spend a couple weeks in the city pretending to be residents. It's a different world and it would not be much fun in the winter but we could have spent even more time there for sure.
This pet sitting gig was a fantastic diversion! You've got a good thing going here!
ReplyDeleteWe were very fortunate to have gotten this gig. It was even better than we expected!
DeleteI think your pet sitting in Chicago is absolutely the way to really see the city. It's sort of like I feel about seeing a national park you really can't go for a day or two and take it all in. It's much more fun to be there for several weeks and get to know it. I'm not a city person at all and we never went to cities while we traveled but if I could have been in that high-rise I very well might have come because of the things you chose to see. I had no idea there were so many cool things in Chicago. Love the outside art and the covid car made me laugh out loud. As did happy camper Pizza. What fun. Not sure about the swimming. I wonder what the water quality is like. Thanks for showing this all to me.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, most places require more than just a day or two to truly appreciate so we were lucky to have been able to experience Chicago for a couple weeks. We were told the water quality in Lake Michigan was good and safe for swimming, but since I forgot my bathing suit I didn't get to find out:-)
DeleteYou are doing Chicago the right way. You were there long enough to really get the flavor and see all it has to offer, as well as "living" there. We stopped in the MH for a couple days. It is definitely not MH freindly. One has to stay way outside the city. Thanks for showing us around. Love the VW bug! Glad Jim didn't have covid.
ReplyDeleteEvery time one of us gets a stuffy nose or sore throat we think we have Covid now! Since we were visiting friends after Chicago we didn't want to expose them, hence the testing.
DeleteChicago was great but we would like to go back when we can feel safe doing some indoor actvities.
We are in Erie now, where it has rained almost every day and is very humid. Jim was looking at houses online but I think the humidity has cured him of wanting to live here. And he has never experienced a real winter, which I think he would hate even more than he hates the summer heat in AZ!