Well we are now on Day 5 of our adventure, waking up in Flagstaff, Arizona and preparing for our drive to The Grand Canyon. But let me back up to our two day jaunt to Chicago. I'm a little bit behind due to the lack of Wi-fi on the train so I will endeavor to catch up in the next couple of days.


What a wonderful city! We arrived on time after some wet and windy weather in Newark, a bit of turbulence taking off and landing, and very windy weather in Chicago. But we made it - a taxi to our hotel and the room was ready so we were checked in before Noon and we were hungry!!  So let's do the first thing you do in Chicago when you're hungry, eat their Deep Dish Pizza. The hotel recommended a place nearby and off we went. It did not disappoint as we attempted to share a small (6-slice) - we ate all but one slice and the server told us that was pretty good. I had forgotten (or didn't even know) that Chicago's version of deep dish pizza puts the cheese inside and the sauce on top - it was the cheesiest.


Then off to do a bit of exploring for the next couple of days. We spent the afternoon at the Shedd Aquarium (I love a good aquarium - just like the kids). Enjoyed the 3D Shark Movie, the dolphin show, saw beluga whales and overall a very nice way to spend the afternoon. Back to the hotel to rest before heading up to the Chicago Riverwalk to eat dinner.  A long walk there and back but we found a nice place to eat outside along the river and took in the ambiance of Chicago.

Friday saw us heading to the Field Museum for a much too short visit but we did manage to see Sue the T.rex (discovered in 1990 north of Faith, South Dakota) as well as Maximo the Titanosaur (the largest dinosaur that ever lived) and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition produced by the Natural History Museum in London - these were amazing photographs by both young people and adults alike. 


Will definitely want to spend a full day at the Field Museum in the future, but we needed to catch the water taxi to the Navy Pier as we had booked an architectural river tour of the Chicago river on the SeaDog (those over-sized looking race boats). Again - it did not disappoint as we enjoyed a 45-mph boat ride on Lake Michigan before heading through the lock system to see the city up close and personal, enjoying many details about the city and its buildings from our informative and fun guide. We now know why its called the "Windy" city (nothing to do with wind), why it's called "Second City" (nothing to do with size) and many other trivial facts that we can bore you with when we return. I think this was an 18,000+ step day!!!

Saturday morning we made a quick trip to the Adler Planetarium and caught the Apollo 11 exhibition as we celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the first Moon landing this July 29th (yes, I remember).

And then we were off to Chicago's Union Station to catch the Amtrak Southwest Chief for our train ride to Flagstaff, Arizona. Will save the train ride detail for another blog.