Chicago - Long Weekend Trip

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The 'summer season' starts out with Linda and me taking a trip to Chicago, one of our new favorite cities! Our hotel was the Hyatt, conveniently located on the Miracle Mile.

We flew in Friday, checked into our hotel, and then headed to Rush Street for drinks and dinner at Le Colonial. The food there was delicious! Afterwards we wandered down Rush Street trying to decide which of the many bars to visit, and decided upon Syn, where we immediately made several new friends. The drinks were flowing, the vibe upbeat and fun, and the dance music 70s and 80s. It was a good choice.

The next day we walked along the Miracle Mile, taking in the sights along the way, did some shopping and had lunch at Watertower Place. Then we hopped on a trolley tour and enjoyed a guided ride around the city, which gave us a good idea of where we wanted to target our sight-seeing over the next couple of days. In the evening we geared up for our friend Lorraine's 80's birthday bash at a neighborhood bar in Wrigleyville, where the back room was closed off for the party and there was an open bar. Around 85 of her friends showed up for the event. The party was a blast. Afterwards, cause apparently we weren't done yet, we partied a bit more at our hotel's bar, Big.

Sunday Linda attended another friend's baby shower, while I hopped on the trolley again. We met up at the Shed Aquarium; our favorite thing to see there was the beautiful Beluga whales. There was a juvenile whale that was so fun to watch; it was very attached to the female trainer and would not leave her side, begging to be petted.
After leaving the aquarium we walked/ran to Navy Pier (we didn't realize it was a 3-mile stretch) to catch an architectural boat tour; we missed our scheduled one but was able to get a later one. We ended our day's touring with a visit to the Sears Sky Tower, where we took in sunset views of the Chicago skyline atop the 106th floor.
Later we met up with some new friends for dinner and then headed back to our hotel where we crashed a private party (no I'm not kidding) and partied some more.

Monday we slept in a bit, packed up and checked in our bags. Then we caught the trolley to the near the financial district, where we found the Harley store, visited the retro Mickey D's, and I had a Chicago-style hot dog at the famous Portillo's. From there we visited Millennium Park and the Buckingham Fountain.

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