Day 7: Chicago on the Fourth of July

Greetings and Happy Independence Day from Chicago!

Thank you for all of your Chicago suggestions but we were impeded by many obstacles: well, to be truthful, the only obstacle was that I slept in until 10 o'clock. We had breakfast at noon at a great little diner and then we finally set out for our day in Chicago. First order of business was to get tickets for the Architectural Institute's River Tour of Chicago. We could only get tickets for the 5 o'clock tour, so we spent the afternoon at the nearby Art Institute of Chicago.

Oh, poor us! Spending the afternoon surrounded by the art works that I had studied all of my school years from junior high through college. I was almost in tears to be immersed in the history that I had memorized by rote from text books and bad reproductions, and here I was surrounded by original Picasso's, Monet's, Modigliani's, and Chagall's.

There was a docent permanently posted in front of Grant Woods' American Gothic, so we could not get a photo, but I also totally disagreed with her interpretation of the work. This is vacation and I didn't want to get into a fight with someone who spends her life in front of one painting, but just let me go on record here that Wood's American Gothic was not about the solidity of the values of the agricultural society in America: Woods painted American Gothic as a reaction to the oppresive, limited view of the agricultural society in America. It was a protest painting, not a documentary. End of tirade.

Anyway, we followed history from a new perspective today: art.
Luckily for us, many of the galleries were closed for renovation, or we might still be there. Because it was the Fourth of July, I just could not pass up taking picture of the Nathan Hale and Abraham Lincoln models made for the large statues.


After a lovely outdoor light lunch at the Garden Restaurant, followed by 25 minutes to view the Mideval collection, we were hoofing it again to make our 5 o'clock boat tour. This was just a total overload: 90 minutes of facts and figures as we stared up into the Chcago skyline. I probaly learned more about architecture on this tour than I did in 8 years as an art major.

We ended our day at Maggiano's Italian Family restaurant. Tanda, I hope this was the place that you recommended, because it was very, very good-especially the three scoops of spumoni ice cream that I slurped up. Of course we had to walk the mile back to the hotel after that over-indulgence to burn up at least one or two of the calories that we had consumed.

It seems appropriate to close this Independence Day Blog with an image of the full-scale statue of Nathan Hale. With all the fireworks displays that go on in Chicago, we managed to miss all of them. We also missed Chicago pizza, and, sorry Bruce, we won't make it to Wrigley Field, but we had a great day in Chicago and our first impression was very positive. We look forward to coming back when we can spend more time here-but tomorrow, it's time to pack up and move on to South Bend Indiana. It's Laundry Day! Then we will make the short drive to Niles Michigan to visit with John's Uncle Tom.

Did I mention that our fancy schmanzy hotel room has a real live goldfish in a little goldfish bowl. John is sure that they will notice if I try to smuggle him out. He is such a cute little guy, I don't want to leave him behind...I don't think he gets enough to eat here.

Hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July.

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