Spence had an engineering conference in Chicago and I was able to tag along. We flew out of Great Falls, which was nice cause it's such a small airport. In Chicago we stayed at a hotel down town called The Silversmith, it was a nice enough place. We didn't rent a car but were able to walk everywhere, which kinda freaked me out at times, I was always looking over my back to see if anyone was following me or planning to rob me. We must have looked like tourists too just gawking at the tall buildings and taking pictures. Luckily we came out okay and safe... there was a lot praying going on.
Kali stayed in Medicine Hat with my friend Erin and her family, so she had 4 siblings for a week. We almost had to fight to bring her home when we got back, they love her and she loves them. Good thing she was so excited to see the gifts we bought her.
Here are some pictures we took in Chicago:
Spencer and I went to a good Mexican type restaurant called Chipotle, we had burritos and these good salty lime chips with guac.
That is a good burrito.
This was us with the Chicago theater in the background, there are lots of fancy theaters down town.
These pigeons were everywhere, they kinda freaked me out. They would let you get quite close to them which is why Spence seems to think that there should be no real hunger with the transients down town.
I set this picture up at the Planetarium with the sky line behind me. This was alteast 2 miles from my hotel so I got a nice walk in everyday.
This picture was taken in front of this huge shiny silvery bean in Millennium Park. We were facing the bean and this was the reflection, Spence had the camera on my shoulder and took this picture.
This is a picture of me under the bean, the reflection of the flash was crazy awesome.
On Sunday Spencer's wonderful cousin Heather, who lives in Chicago, picked us up for church and fed us dinner at her place. She made a killer soup! On our way to the church building we passed this man who was carrying like a hundred bags of cotton candy on this huge stick, it looked like a rainbow stick and stuck up like 15 feet up in the air behind him. Too bad it was Sunday, I'm a sucker for cotton candy.
Monday night we went out to Oak Park on the Subway. No one pushed me on to the track or robbed us which to our friend Jesse, was a miracle. Jesse is doing a Facial Surgery residency and we went out there to have dinner with him and hang out, thankfully he drove us home after.
These are the gates to the subway.
Spencer on a creepy bridge with a reverse flowing river behind him.
It was quite beautiful.
We went on a date to the John Hancock Observatory, this is the view. The tallest building you can see is the Sears tower. On our way we walked through the Magnificent mile, there are some major shopping stores on this street. Spencer is so lucky that those kind of things don't really matter to me.
This is me at the Sears tower on the Ledge. It's a glass ledge that sticks out of the building a couple feet. It's 103 floors above the ground, and the elevator ride is super fast which popped my ears pretty good.
This is some Chicago stuffed crust deep dish pizza, too cheesy for my taste. I prefer Panago.
This was at the Shedd Aquarium, yet another 2 mile walk from my hotel. It was okay, I wish they had more sharks. I did get to see some dolphins and beluga whales tricks though, I was able to watch a 4-D movie where I got wet, so it was a pretty good day.
We went out looking for a good hotdog place and only found this one nearby our hotel. I think it tasted like a hot dog I can make at home.
This was my City Pass, it was such a good deal, I recommend for anyone going to a big city to get one.
This was at the Field Museum of Natural History. 2 miles from my hotel. I meant to go to the museum, aquarium and planetarium all on the same day since they are all in the the same area, but one day I ran out of time, one day only the planetarium of them was open and the last day I had to go to the aquarium and the Sears tower. It felt so good to walk so much but my feet were pretty sore.
This is the most complete dinosaur in the world, it's a T-rex named Sue.
Okay, I went on a Chocolate tour one day... didn't love it. It was a great idea but for $50 bucks and google search I could have made a way better chocolate tour for myself. I found this cupcake shop a couple blocks down from my hotel, definitely worth the walk. Their cupcakes were nice and dense, not from a mix and the icing was pretty okay ( not as good as my own). They had lots of flavors to choose from and the shop was very cute.
All in all, it was a fun trip, fun to be away from home, fun to go somewhere, fun to be with Spence alone, fun to have someone else clean up after me and make my bed everyday. But being in a big city and staying downtown kinda freaked out this small city girl.
