Chicago

10 7 09

We decided to drive downtown to the Navy Pier where you could park for $20 all day. Sounded good. The traffic was so slow on the freeway in the middle of the day, just like Jim Cearley had told me. We used Luna to find the way and she is sometimes difficult to understand when there are a few right turns to choose from. So we ended up on the wrong street but that was OK because we got to drive along the beautiful Lakeshore Drive. The weather had changed completely and we had a clear sky and warm sunshine. Ulla had said the night before that Chicago needed to be seen in good weather. She must have sent the sun our way!

We did not find the Navy Pier very interesting. From there we took a architectural boat tour on the Chicago River for an hour. The guide gave us some history and explained the different high rises we passed. Do not ask me to remember the different buildings. The guide told us how the businesses along the river threw all sewage in the river that ended up in Lake Michigan, where they were getting their drinking water. The city fathers understood that was not a healthy idea so instead of not letting the sewage flow into the river, they decided to reverse the flow of the river! They built a canal between the south Chicago River and the Mississippi River and dug it so deep that the water reversed its direction!

After a Chicago pizza, we decided to walk downtown which became more complicated as the map did not show which street was walkable. We ended up in a cab to get us across the heavy traffic without cross walks. Jalil wanted to see the Chicago Board of Trade and we found it on Wacker Street quite a walk through downtown. I do not find walking downtown with all these high rises and the same stores we have at home very interesting. Well, we got there but it had moved and we needed previous arrangement to get in at the new location. So we continued to the Sears Tower on the same street, which is now called the Willis Tower. The reason it changed name is that Willis rented three floors in the building and that gave them the right to rename the tower. Some people in Chicago are unhappy about this and still call it Sears Tower. They charged us $14.50 - no refund for bad weather - to see a video (which now neither Jalil or I remember) and to go up 103 floors in the elevator to see all around Chicago. That was worth it! A new experience up there was three glass boxes jutting out of the building so that you could stand in it and it appeared as if there was nothing between you and the ground! It was called Skydeck Ledge. Just looking over the edge made me nauseous. Jalil liked it and took a lot of picture while inside but he admitted that he was scared.

Well down on the ground, we took a cab back to our car. We decided that the freeway would be too busy so we drove along Lakeshore Drive, which of course was slow but we saw that part of town - many beautiful brick homes on treelined streets - and the beach was nice. Now if I had done my homework, I would have known that just a few blocks from where we were driving was Andersonville, which was a Swedish neighborhood and still had a few Swedish stores and restaurants. I read that when we returned to our motel. So on the morning we were leaving Chicago we drove back to this area.