Welcome to day 7 of our adventure! Personally, I think that today was my favorite day of the trip thus far. Why you ask? Because we went and explored the windy city of CHICAGO, ILLINOIS! It was amazing! Let me tell you all about it.
We woke up this morning at the lovely home of Linda and Norm Vessering. We decided to wake up early this morning so that we could spend a good amount of the day sightseeing and experiencing the great city. However, it was a struggle with the two hour time change but we managed to get up a little before 8, (Illinois time) and be out the door by 9:30. Linda was so sweet and offered to drop us off at the train station near their house in West Chicago so we could catch the train at 9:45. After that, the train only would come through every hour so we needed to make sure that we caught that train.
We waited at the platform for about ten minutes until the train came. West Chicago is one of the first stops so when we boarded we were happy because we could sit wherever we wanted. The train was a very old traditional style train that had an upper and a lower deck. We decided to sit on the upper level so in order to get there we had we had to walk up these narrow steps but it was well worth it because it made for a fun ride. It took about an hour to get to the downtown train station and last stop called "Ogilvie." The ride was pretty uneventful but it was fun going through new territory and not being the one to actually have to drive. :)
As Teej and I got off the platform at the train station we were so excited to walk through the city and see anything and everything we could. The platform was very modern looking with a large mall attached to the station (which I had never seen before at a train station). Anyway, we walked up the escalator to the doors and went outside. The station was a lot larger then we were anticipating because when we turned around to look at the building we were in awe of the height and and overall stature of the premises. So, of course, we had to take a photo!
I had mentioned to Teej earlier on the train that I really wanted to see the Navy Pier. It is this long strip of land that is surrounded by Lake Michigan with a huge Farris Wheel, fun rides, and food. Very touristy but it looked like a fun place to visit. So, since we are tourists, we had to go visit it. :) The distance from the train station to the pier was about 2 miles so we turned right from the train station and just started walking. Of course, we got very distracted as we began to walk because we were surrounded by all these beautiful high rise buildings, a canal running through the city, and much more. One of my favorite things we saw was this really cool red and white sign that said Chicago on it. I loved it and felt it was appropriate to take a picture with it! At this point, I became a mad woman with the camera and just started taking photos of everything I saw. It was a beautiful sunny day (about 78 degrees) with little to no wind so in our opinion, it was the perfect day to be in the city. We were so thankful for the sunny weather today because it made for such amazing pictures.
When we were walking alongside the canal we saw this beautiful fountain to our left. We stopped to watch it for a bit and the next thing you know water starts shooting out of this cannon looking object to our right and almost sprays us to death. We jumped up really fast and thankfully didn't get very wet. :) It was kind of comical.
We finally reached the pier after about an hour of walking around and taking pictures of beautiful buildings. The Pier was amazing and it allowed us to see Lake Michigan for the very first time! We were amazed at how BLUE the water was. Actually, the water, surprisingly, reminded us of Hawaii because of how rich the color was. As we starting walking out to the pier we heard a loud crash behind us. We turned around and we saw 2 cars had smashed into each other. The young lady who hit this man was really upset and screaming at the man. The funny part about this is that the car the lady hit belonged to a state trooper who was off duty. So, she was yelling at a state trooper. In my opinion, not to smart lady. We saw him call for backup on his radio and in about 2-3 minutes help was on the way. Teej and I got kind of distracted watching this whole thing happen but after a couple minutes I pulled Teej away from the crash and we continued on our way.
The Pier was awesome! I think our favorite part was being able to see the whole city and the Lake behind us. That, of course, made for some stunning pictures. As we continued walking we saw a bunch of high schoolers and middle schoolers roaming around the area. We later figured out that they were all on field trips. Some of them were even dressed up like they were going to Prom. We never figured out why they were dressed up walking down the pier but there were a lot of them so something must have have had to been going on. :)
After the pier, we headed over to the John Hancock Observatory. It is one of the tallest buildings in the city with over 95 floors. Needless to say, a building with 95+ floors is going to have an amazing view at the top. We had heard from Linda that you can eat lunch on floor 95 for a reasonable price so we decided to try it out and see what we thought. I think that was the best decision we made all the day. Lunch was closing at 2:30 and we arrived at 2 to eat so when we got there there wasn't very many people there. With that said, we got to sit at a table with a phenomenal view of the city. We could see the pier to our left and the rest of the city in front and to the left of us! We definitely took our time eating because we really wanted to enjoy the view!
Before we left, we headed to the other side of the restaurant to see the view from the other direction. It was crazy because the view we saw looked almost identical to one you would see in Honolulu, HI. You could see the coastline and the building right next to it. The weird part about it was not only that it looked like Hawaii but that it had sand. I wasn't aware that lakes produced sand but apparently they do. Who knew? haha....
After lunch, we headed back over to the pier to the place where you could take boat rides. They have several options of tours you can take but they are awfully expensive and when Teej and I were talking we just wanted to ride on a boat and take photos. We didn't really care about the history as sad as that sounds. (sorry Dad. I am sorry that is disappointing to you!) Anyway, we decided to take this boat called a water taxi. It only costs $7 each and it took us to Willis Tower (old sears tower) where we wanted to be anyway so it worked out great. The ride lasted for only about 15 minutes but it was really cool because it took us under all the beautiful bridges and through the middle of the city on the canal.
We got off the train and headed down toward the waterfront again but this time we didn't go to the pier. Instead, we went to Millennium Park and the concert hall. I had read online all about Millennium Park and told Teej that we had to go. It took us a while to walk there but we thought it was worth it by the time we got there. Millennium Park had this amazing structure called "Cloud Gate." Cloud Gate was this large bean looking thing that was surrounded in mirrors. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. You could see not only your reflection in the structure but also the refections of the buildings so we got some pretty fun and creative photos of that. 
The last structure we saw before heading back to the train was the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. It was this amazing concert hall that had these beams covering it. It's kind of hard to explain but was really fascinating to see. We agreed that we had never seen anything like it before and would love to go to a concert there at some point. We sat there and talked for a while because we were pretty tired and we had an hour wait before we had to get on the train to go back. When we got back from Chicago we looked up on google maps how far we walked and we figured out that it had to be about 8 miles. No wonder we were pooped by the end of today!
Overall, today was amazing! We absolutely fell in love with the city and can't wait to explore it more tomorrow! I think we are going to try to head over to Wrigley Field to see the Cub stadium (even though they aren't playing) as well as see Grant Park and a couple other things. We were so fortunate to be able to walk all over the city today in such amazing weather. We are blessed!
For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see. Psalm 36:9
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