Winding through the Windy City

 

The tribe picked me up along the highway after work and we kept heading south towards the City of Broad Shoulders, Sinclair's Jungle, Chi-town, the Windy City.  Call it by any name and it is still an adventure.  Traffic was traffic, but with real time reports we bailed from the snake of a parking lot ironically called an express way and hit the local side roads.  Made good time and were at Lou Malanati's before 7.  Ella thought the pizza was "amazing' and worth the drive.  The others ate plenty and we still took some of the pie back to the hotel.  The weather was in the low fifties and perfect for wandering amidst the concrete and steel towers of a big city.  The lights were on an we stopped by the Trump tower for so the kids could give a "salute." Grace is too polite and declined the gesture.  With some cash burning a hole in their pockets and mine we headed to Ghiradelli to load up on some chocolate for our walk.  An inpromtu horse and carriage ride seemed like the perfect way to see a bit of the city and we all loaded in and slowly perused under single horse power.  A little too slow actually and we were audibly accosted by an "angry elephant"...actually a big white church bus with bad brakes, but it could have passed for a pissy pachyderm.  The hotel was comfortable with great views of the Magnificent Mile and similar to on the street it seemed that several people had pet skunks, may it is a new trend.  Merrick retreated from the window when he realized how high up we were but as the weekend progressed he would find himself and the rest of us tipped out over the building about 100 stories up in the John Hancock building.  Saturday morning we Ubered over to the Shedd Aquarium to take in all the life of water and watched the performing sea lion and dolphins.  An owl even made an appearance and flew past us to grab a mouse reward.  The Shedd was educational and the kids learned some new fish names and we watched everything from otters to buluga whales swim through the aquaria.  After a fish free meal at the Shedd we walked back towards the hotel past Buckingham fountain and stopped to see the "bean" and skating rink at Millennium Park.  Our attention was diverted by a couple of wheelie riding bikers before we continued our wandering towards the Hancock building.  A nice, albeit a little early, dinner at the habachi grill and stop at all types of stores including at Gucci, American Girl, Dylan's Candy Shop,  and bath bomb bonazza at Lush before finding an evening dessert at Eataly. Our feet were done, over twelve hours of wandering and nearly 10 miles told us it was time for a quick dip in the pool and retreat to the hotel.