Chicago Sightseeing Day 3

After 2 days with lots of walking to stretch out my legs, I felt ready to run! Elise initially wanted to run with me and dad, but after falling the night before, we decided it was best for her to rest her ankle. I found a 1.7 mile loop around Miller Meadow that was just a 5 minute drive from our Airbnb. Ty looked and it was the same place he had found a disc golf course at so he went with us. We walked outside to rain and Ty joked that he didn't want to go anymore, but he did. It was a little chilly and all I had was a tank top so he let me borrow his hoodie to run in. I ended up taking it off about a mile in and running in my tank top, but put it back on to walk. He played a round of disc golf while dad and I ran. It felt so good, I wanted to keep going, but made myself stop at 2 miles. Then I walked until dad finished. We saw 2 deer while we were running and then in a different area I saw 2 more deer while I was walking. There was also a dog park and it was fun to watch the dogs playing there.

I like to visit an Independent Bookstore when we are on vacation so I found a website that listed all the Independent Bookstores in Chicago by neighborhood. Based on location and the description of the bookstores, we landed on Exile in Bookville. It was amazing and one of my favorite bookstores I've been to! The owner had lots of recommendation tabs for books I hadn't heard of before. I also had the added excitement of Elise pointing out a Lore Olympus book and realizing it was the newest volume that had just released in early October. Carter wanted to read it first so he went off to read it while I was still looking around the bookstore. I came across Gillian Flynn's books and saw they were signed. I decided to replace my copy of Dark Places with an autographed copy because it was signed with silver pen on a black page. When I got home I was thrilled to discover my copy of Dark Places was one I'd gotten from a little free library so it wasn't in very good condition! We went to a food hall for lunch and got Chicago dogs with poppyseed buns at Chicago Dog House. I was excited to see there was also a Stan's Donuts. They gave us a mini chocolate coated donut after the race and it was so good, I wanted to try some of their other donuts. Mom and I picked out 5 different donuts and we cut them all so we could each try a little piece.

Elise had come across The Color Factory when she was looking at places in Chicago. She really wanted to go and I didn't think it looked very good, but I ended up really enjoying it! There was a room with birthdays and when you picked up your birthday, it gave you a color and told you information about yourself which was cool. There was also a room where you sat across from someone else and drew them without looking down. I died laughing when I saw Ty's drawing of me and laughed until I cried. One room had confetti which was a lot of fun. Elise was most excited about a room that was a giant ball pit, but was disappointed in it. It was pretty shallow and not very much fun. The Color Factory was inside the Willis Building. You can see in the picture dad took of us on the escalator that Elise started wearing her otter hat tied around her waist like a fanny pack and kept her drawing pad which mom and dad bought her at the bookstore and a pencil which we got for her in it. When we were on the train or waiting somewhere, she would get it out to draw. While we were walking from one train station to the next I commented on what a pretty walk it was and how much fun it was to walk in this area. Carter said I kept saying that and I said, yeah, I guess I just really like this area. He said, no you always say that no matter where we are walking, in a city or in nature. I said I guess I just like to walk. Then he said, you are just always happy. It was cute.

Our last stop was the Navy Pier. We were done at the color factory around 5:30 and decided to go straight there. We wanted to ride the ferris wheel in the dark and figured it would get dark around 6-6:30. On our way we stopped at Ross to get sweatpants for Elise and Jeremy who were both wearing shorts. Then we got an Uber to the Navy Pier because there weren't any trains that ran over that way. We ate at Harry Caray's restaurant and it took long enough that we weren't finished until 7:50 and the ferris wheel closed down at 8, so we missed riding the carousel. While we waited on our food, we checked out the shops and I was excited to find a drawing of the bean as an art print for our vacation art wall. We also found a Garrett's and got Garrett's mix of popcorn which is cheddar and caramel mix. It was delicious. Ty got a Chicago dog at dinner and was proud he had 4 hot dogs in 2 days. After dinner we walked over to the pier so we could look at the ferris wheel and the view. The view was totally worth it!

Step Count for the Day: 21,396

Chicago Sightseeing Day 2

We got an earlier start this day and headed into the city around 10:00. As we were heading to our first spot, we walked past the Downtown Chicago Library. We walked past it on our way to the expo and I wanted to go in, but we didn't have time. This time we did have time, so we stopped in and it was gorgeous! There were 10 floors with 9 floors open to the public. A Vietnam Memorial constructed with dog tags hung from one of the ceilings. On the 9th floor there was a Winter Garden which was closed in preparation for an event that evening, but could see through the windows and it was so pretty! The kids were impressed that it had escalators and wanted to ride them all the way to the top floor!

After we left the library and rode a train toward the Field Museum, the kids decided they wanted to stop to get lunch. I had to use the bathroom earlier in a Subway restaurant and you had to buy something to get the code so I bought a sandwich there. Mom, Jeremy, and I didn't want to stop so we walked on ahead to the Field Museum. It was a beautiful walk through a park. There were some stumps in a garden and mom took a video of me hopping across them, you can tell my quads are still sore in the way I land as I dismount. We walked around the bird area while we waited on them which was prefect because they weren't interested in going through everything. The main highlight for everyone was the dinosaur bones and Sue, obviously! I was fascinated by a giant ground sloth. I asked dad if they were slow back then like they are now and he responded with, "I haven't seen this one move since I walked in here." There was a Halloween themed exhibit we paid extra to go through and Ty turned a corner and got a spiderweb with a spider hanging from it stuck to his backpack. We were cracking up over it. He was convinced someone in our group stuck it to his backpack. I randomly came across a room that said it contained one of the rarest books on Earth so I excitedly went in and found an Audubon book made on double elephant paper because he wanted the ducks he drew to be life sized. I told mom about it and she asked if it was worth it to go see it because it was right at the end of our trip, I told her I would go up and down the stairs again to take her to find it, so yes! My legs were feeling pretty good, but stairs were still a challenge. I also liked the hominid section and the archaeopteryx. I saw some cool machines you could make a plastic mold and wanted to get the kids each one. Elise picked Sue and Carter picked the archaeopteryx.

Sue

Giant Ground Sloth

Audubon Book

We were all getting tired, but we were so close to the Shedd Aquarium, we decided to go ahead and visit it as well. It was free night for Illinois residents so it was open later, until 9pm which worked well for us. It was pretty busy, but not too bad. One of the first things we did was a touch tank with sharks. Mom got the whole sleeve of her jacket wet and Elise also got her shirt wet. It was a chilly night so mom got them sweatshirts in the gift shop before we left. The highlights, of course, were the beluga whales! The dolphins were also really neat to see and we watched a dolphin show before leaving. We were also fascinated by the sea dragons. All the fish were so beautiful! In the gift shop Carter wanted a penguin hat and I told him I would get it for him so Elise wanted an otter hat. Carter was having a blast pretending to be a penguin and wore it every day of the trip. I told Ty if he never wears it again, it was worth it just to see him have so much fun with it on the trip. After the gift shop, we went back to try to find the sea lions because we had missed them. As we were going down the stairs, Elise was skipping stairs and fell down a level of stairs. She had her hands in the warmer part of her hat and wasn't able to catch herself very well, so she landed on her head. She twisted her ankle as she fell so her ankle was pretty sore and she was having a hard time walking. She didn't want to wear her hat anymore after that so I wore it. It was pretty chilly so it was nice to warm my hands! Ty carried her up and down stairs and then I talked them into getting an electric scooter to ride the rest of the way to the train station. Ty rolled his ankle playing pickleball a few weeks before our trip and it was still sore. I could see it was hurting him as he carried her, but there was no way I could carry her on stairs. I was still struggling on my own!

We saw this photo op on our walk from the Field Museum to the Shedd Aquarium.

Seadragons are related to sea horses and the males are also the ones who give birth.

Everybody was looking forward to getting some Chicago Style Hot Dogs so we found one that wasn't too far from a train stop. We rode a train to Devil Dogs and then walked a really short way. The hot dogs were delicious. Elise and I shared a milkshake which was also really good. Ty and I shared cheese fries which were incredible. The Chicago style relish was what made the hot dog for me. I read an article on the wall that talked about Chicago style hot dogs and mentioned they usually have a poppyseed bun. I decided we should get different Chicago style dogs the following day, but get them from a place that had poppyseed buns.

At the train station Carter and Elise were messing with each other so Ty told Carter "no touching" so he turned and started patting mom.

Step Count for the Day: 18,281