Weekend in the "Windy City"

Cylynn's sister (Chelsy) and her family made a trip out to Chicago one weekend in July. They asked us to come out and join them and since Chicago is only four hours drive from Coralville we decided to make the trip. The drive was quite boring; we saw mostly corn. We met our brother-in-law and nephew at the Midway airport around dinner time. Then the traveling problems began.

Chelsy's plane from Las Vegas could not pressurize after taking off. They were forced to fly in circles for a half-hour to use up fuel in order to lose some weight for landing. When the plane landed the brakes were damaged and they were forced to switch planes. Meanwhile, we, the group in Chicago, went to dinner and ate some real Chicago style pizza. If you haven't had any real Chicago style pizza you are truly missing out. It is not very similar to regular pizza but I really liked it.

As we finished dinner we received a call from Chelsy that her plane would be delayed even more due to the weather in Chicago. We decided to head to the hotel and come back to pick her up. We made the mistake of not taking the freeway to the hotel. We drove the entire way to downtown on Archer Avenue, an experience we will never forget. When we finally reached downtown we received three different sets of directions from three different cab drivers to find our hotel. We finally found the place and had our car parked.

As we were unpacking our luggage our brother-in-law (Wags) found a surprise. He grabbed the wrong bag at the airport. The bag was exactly the same except it was missing the pink string Chelsy had tied to the handle. Well, needless to say we had our car returned and we drove back to the airport. We took the freeway this time and were able to find the correct bag and return the wrong bag to the airport. We then waited and picked up Chelsy and returned to the hotel around 1:30 am to finally get some sleep.

The next day, Friday, was the Cubs game. We were able to purchase tickets to the game for an obscene amount of money. This was my first time to attend a major league baseball game. I must admit that baseball is not my favorite sport to play or watch. I tend to become bored by the end of the game. I did enjoy the experience of Wrigley field though. I loved the live organ playing during the breaks and before the game. Here are a couple of pictures from the game (one of Cylynn and I and the other a hilarious picture of our nephew Landon):

Part of the experience of Chicago was riding on the subway and elevated train system they have there. Now many of you may be thinking that this is either an insignificant or undesired part of Chicago. I, on the other hand, realized how much I had missed riding on trains and buses since I was in Germany. I enjoy observing and listening to all of the interesting people around you. It is much more entertaining than driving in a car.

Back to the story. The next day we visited the Shed Aquarium and Field Museum in Chicago. The Shed aquarium was one of the best organized aquariums we have ever been too. They organized it in rivers or areas of the ocean specifically instead of by continents. We saw many interesting fish and watched a dolphin show to cap it all off. The dolphin show wasn't very impressive for those of you who ever visit the aquarium. Here are some pictures:

Note: the top three pictures were taken in an artificial egg at a barnyard zoo we went too with Landon. I bet you would not believe I could fit in something that small. Cylynn and I had to get in first in order to convince Landon that it was not too dangerous or scary.

Following the Shed Aquarium we visited the Field Museum there. It is famous for the lions of Tsavo (which you have heard of if you have seen the movie The Ghost and the Darkness). These were two killer lions who killed for the joy and the blood rather than food and had somehow become addicted to human blood. Anyway, we looked at the lions and got a couple of pictures with Sue the T-Rex. She is the most complete T-Rex skeleton in the U.S. found in South Dakota in the 1990's. You can see in the pictures that Cylynn and I have arms pretty comparable to the length of a T-Rex arm.

The last night of our trip was spent on Navy Pier on the shore of Lake Michigan near our hotel. Anyone who knows much about Chicago has probably heard of Navy Pier. Many of the cruise ship and tour boats take off from this sight. There are a number of restaurants as well, as some carnival rides to enjoy. Chelsy, Wags and Landon took a ride on the Ferris wheel and Cylynn took Landon on a ride on the Carousel. We had some dinner and ice cream and watched a human chandelier show to top it off. The chandelier had a number of people playing instruments and completing acrobatic stunts while a hundred feet in the air held up by a crane. Here are some final pictures and a video of the chandelier show. The sound turned out much better than I would have expected.

We were so happy to spend a weekend with family. That last picture of Landon has got to be one of the best pictures ever taken. Backing up to the title. Cylynn and I both loved Chicago so much we decided we would not mind living there. It was beautiful, but ironically not very windy.