The Windy City

We are fortunate enough to have friends near Chicago who invited us to stay with them for three nights.  We arrived there late afternoon and made plans for the next two days to tour Chicago.  Don has lived there all his life and Lynette has lived there most of her life except for a stint in Hardy, Arkansas when she lived "down the lake" from me when we were in high school.  

Chicago Skyline from the tour bus

Don took off work for the two days we were there and drove us downtown.  He is an amazing tour guide.  What really amazed me though was how he always knew where we were, which way to turn when we came out of a building and where everything was! We bought tickets for the Chicago Big Bus hop on - hop off tour.  One of our first stops was at The Rookery.  What an amazing building inside!  It was completed in 1888 and is a 12-story building.  It is considered the oldest-standing high-rise in Chicago.  The lobby was remodeled in 1905 by Frank Lloyd Wright.  The guard inside kind of gave us a personal tour of the first floor.  

 Inside the Rookery

 Steps on second floor

Close-up of elevator doors

We also went to the James R Thompson Building which is also called the Illinois Building.  It houses the offices of the Illinois State Government.

James R Thompson aka Illinois Building

Inside the building - We couldn't go above

the first floor

The former Marshall Field's has been a Macy's store since 2006.  We walked through one area on our way to the Walnut Room.  It has the distinction of being the first restaurant in a department store and it is also the longest continuously running  restaurant in the country.  It opened in 1907.  

The original sign is still on the building

The Walnut Room - at Christmas time, the fountain is

taken apart and a 45-foot Christmas tree is put up.

The Field Museum is one of the largest natural history museums in the world.  It was built in 1921.  We didn't have a lot of time here but we did pick a couple of the galleries to walk through and saw the video "Coral Reef Adventure".  The main attraction when you walk in, is Sue.  Sue is a T-Rex dinosaur that was added in 2000.  It is the most complete and best preserved T-Rex fossil yet discovered.  It is 42 feet long, 13 feet high at the hips and 67 million years old!

Conrad and I at the Field Museum

Sue

The elephants at the Field Museum

The John Hancock Building's Observatory is now called 360 Chicago.  The building is 100 stories and is home to offices, restaurants and about 700 condos.  The observatory is located on the 94th floor.  The elevators are credited to be the fastest in the Western Hemisphere at a top speed of 1,800 feet per minute (20.5 mph).  This is what we saw when we got there!

View from the top

View from the top

View of Navy Pier from the top

It was a cloudy day but you can kind of see below.

The next day, it was back to the city.  Don dropped us off at Millennium Park while he went to park the car.  We waited at Crown Fountain to meet up with Don.  The fountain is composed of a black granite reflecting pool placed between a pair of 50-foot glass brick towers.  The faces keep changing.

Crown Fountain

Another face at Crown Fountain

No visit to Millennium Park is complete without a visit to "The Bean"!  The real name is Cloud Gate.  It is made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams.  It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet.  On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections.  

The Bean!

 Here we are at "The Bean"

 Here I am with Lynette - see the reflection behind us?

 The underside of "The Bean"

Don, Lynette, Conrad & Linda

We got on the bus again at the Trump Tower.  It is next to the Chicago River and is 98-stories tall.  

Trump Tower

A building on the bus tour

More buildings

Next stop was Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower.  The 108-story building was completed in 1973.  In 1969, Sears, Roebuck and Company was the largest retailer in the world with about 350,000 employees in several buildings in the Chicago area.  The executives decided to consolidate the employees in one place.  They figured they needed 3,000,000 square feet of office space.  In 2009, the name was officially renamed Willis Tower.

The entry here is shaped like a mailbox since mail-orders

were a big part of their business.

Willis Tower - hard to get a picture of

the whole building!

Of course, going to the observation deck was at the top of my list.  The elevator took us to the 103rd floor in about 60 seconds.  You could feel your ears popping on the way up and down. 

A view from the top

Another view - look at the freeways!

Another view - it was a hazy day but still a great view!

Yes, I HAD to go out on The Ledge!  It was a little scary to take that first step, but WOW!  I couldn't stay long since a lot of others wanted to do the same thing.

WOW!

One last view

 The Art Institute of Chicago

 One of two bronze lions at the Art Institute

Our last stop on our tour was at the Museum of Science and Industry.  It is the largest science museum in the western hemisphere.  Again, we didn't have enough time to explore a lot here but we made good use of our time!  

Museum of Science and Industry

 When these boys held their arms out and held them
still, the stuff piled up on their arms!

 Did I ever tell you I used to be an astronaut?

When I was in the 2nd grade, my family made a trip to Chicago and we came to this museum.  The hatching baby chicks are about all I remember from the trip.  They are still there and still just as cute and fascinating!

 These chicks are still wet from hatching!

A model of the Chicago buildings.  It was an

excellent exhibit.

Here are a few more views from the city.  I don't know what most of these buildings are, but I'm sure Don knows!  Thanks, Don and Lynette for being such great tour guides and hosts!!

The "El"

I still need to catch you up on our adventures between the time we were in Iowa and the time we got to Chicago.  Today is the first time we've been able to get a good internet signal.