In Search of the Chicago Dog & Deep Dish Pizza

Aunt Ria & Uncle Nacho's...it's where the party's at!

Monday morning we woke up to a beautiful, sunny, great temperature day to explore the interworkings of Chicago.  Nate's Uncle Nacho and Aunt Ria were incredibly wonderful and took great care of us while we were in town.

We decided to be tourists for the day and see what there is to see in downtown Chicago.  Aunt Ria recommended we go see Millenium Park, the Sears Tower aka the Willis Tower, and Navy Pier.  We also were very curious where to get the best local Chicago Dog and Deep Dish Pizza!

Jay Pritzker Pavillion

After about an hour driving east back into the city (Joliet is a little northwest of the city), we parked in the one of the garages for Millenium Park around 10:00am.  Strolled around the block and hit this huge tourist attraction.  We saw Jay Pritzker Pavillion. 

You gotta see this when it is jam-packed full of people and live music!

This was by far, one of the coolest outdoor stage areas ever!  I mean even on the green, there are speakers above you, so you get a clear perfect sound!  So cool; I definitely want to come back and visit and definitely see something here!

Touring it up in Chicago!

Next stop, Cloud Gate, aka The Bean!  This is what I really wanted to see. Don't judge me that I wanted to be a tourist and see this famous icon that's in a lot of movies! Haha. This thing was so cool and beauitful!  

Drop of Mercury!

The Bean!

We stopped to talk to a security guard named Dave, and have us some lovely little facts about this resemblance to a drop of mercury.  To hear that this thing was constructed with a steel frame and then a few hundred steel plates that were welded and polished with plasma welding to make it so shiny and smooth was remarkable to hear!!! Going underneath it was a little crazy: you see so many reflections!

So many reflections!

Pootsy!

Next on the list was right next to the Bean: these two really cool block tower fountains.

This place is awesome...a great idea to cool off in the city!

Had to take these two kiddos here to play in the water!

This was fun, you could take your shoes off and splash around!  And if you were a little more daring, like a lot of the children were, you could go all in and get wet!

And there were many other children they could play with!

As we left Millenium Park, we attempted to go see the Willis Tower, got in line, and then was told there was about 2 hours of waiting.

After some team collaboration, we decided to come back and wait until the crowd died down.  Plus it was getting close to lunch time and we were starting to crave some dogs...! 

Along the river, such a beautiful sight!

Postcard worthy, right?!?

On our way to Navy Pier we got to walk along the river that led into Lake Michigan.  I really do like Chicago, unlike a lot of other cities I've been to, Chicago is by far the most beautiful.  I really appreciate the beauty that each of e buildings individually have and how there is an unique balance between what is city and nature and water.  Very cool!

If only they were kayaks!

There were also a lot of sculptures and statues to look at.  Two that I really liked was this enormous sculpture of aluminum canoes and a line of children holding hands.  Very cool!

This is how I am going to take children on hikes!... Just Kidding!

Navy Pier housed a hot dog company, The American Dog, where we could get the local Chicago Dog!  Please note I rarely eat Hot Dogs...like ever!  But you know putting my particular eating habits aside and take part in this moment.  I might a well since I'm hear and can say I've done this!

I gave in and had a hot dog!  When in Chicago, right?!

Not going to lie, despite the fact I rarely eat hot dogs, the Chicago dog was really delicious!  A Chicago dog had a onions, sport peppers, celery salt, mustard, relish, tomato, AND, a pickle! All on a poppy seed bun.  It was really good-not that this now means I'll incorporate hot dogs into my diet, but it was good for the first time trying it!

Next as we were exploring the pier, we came across a whole bunch of water tours.  The one that stuck our fancy was the one boat tour of a pirate sailor in front of this huge sail boat!

All Aboard!

Tall Ship Windy was a really cool impromptu decision.  We made the 2:15pm tour and right before we headed to get on the boat, we decided to all get drinks.  Beers for the boys and a huge Jack and Diet for me, however, bad decision on our part when we tried to step aboard, they told us we couldn't bring outside drinks onto the ship.

Had to totally chug my drink in a minute before we set sail!  Totally summoned my inner college undergrad self and chugged the whole thing!  Gah!  Prepare yourself for some drunken postings! Just kidding!

Helping raise the sail with our new friend, Ginger!

About to set sail we got to assist on raising the sails! So cool! Sean and I were the peak on the main sail while Nate and our new friend, Ginger, were on the neck.

Sailing on Lake Michigan!

Such a cool view on the water!

The view on the water of the city was absolutely gorgeous!  And the water was so blue-green!  A wonderful ride relaxing on the water and enjoying the sun and the tour!

A few beers and drinks in on the water!

By the time we finished the boat tour, it was about 3:30pm, and we took a can back to the Willis Tower.  Our can driver was from Turkey and he told us about stories about some of the passengers he has driven in the past while we waited in traffic.

Side Note: I did not know that the Sears Tower was renamed and changed to the Willis Tower! So weird! Must be nice to have a lot of money and be able to buy out famous places and change their name. Haha.

It took a few hours to finally go up here.

About to head up to the Sky Deck!

Thinking it was getting later in the day, maybe we'd have a better and quicker chance of getting to the Sky Deck!

Still waiting...

Little did we know that we still had about 3 hours of waiting to do before we got to go up. Let me tell you, every time we 'completed' a line, just around the corner there was another line waiting for us to wait in.  

Then around 7-7:30pm we were finally able to rise up 100 floors in about 60 seconds to the Sky Deck!

Gorgeous views!

The wait was definitely worth it!  The views of the entire city was so cool!

This was a terrifying but cool experience!

Then there were the Sky Ledges!  This was really cool and very scary.  These things jutted out from the building and were completely all see through!

Look down below!

You could go out and literally look down and see the city under your feet!

Can't keep looking down!

We tried to summit pose in such a tiny area!  So below is the photo in our attempt to summit pose at the top of the Willis Tower!

Summit Posing at the top of Willis Tower

We finally called it a day from Chicago and returned back to Uncle Nacho and Aunt Ria's house for some deep dish pizza and some strumming from 2 of the 3 Lightning Jar boys overlooking the sunset!

Ending the Chicago day with Chicago deep dish and a great sunset!

Monday was a great day relaxing and taking a break from long drives.  We definitely conquered Chicago and I hope that I can one day in the future visit this really awesome town and explore it a little more deeply!

DE-LIC-IOUS!

I'll end on this photo!

Tuesday, we will be heading about 8 hours northwest to Blue Mound State Park in Minnesota.  Stay tuned for more adventuring!

Xoxo,

TheChristyBel

TheChristyBel Conquered Chicago!