Blogs from Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America - page 7

We started the day early and left Des Moines by 6:30. We made a couple stops on the way and hit some traffic, but we arrived at our hotel in Chicago by 1pm. We're staying at the Sheraton Grand (free stay with SPG points, woo!), which is on the Riverwalk with easy access to Michigan Avenue, Navy Pier, Millennium Park, and the Wendella boats. In fact, we could see Navy Pier from our room, which the kids were ecstatic to discover. Once we got all of our things to our room, the kids got changed, and we set out by foot to Navy Pier to get some lunch. We walked along Illinois St for most of the way, which was busy and full of pedestrians. The walk was short and easy, and because we arrived at ... read more

Second morning in Chicago and I am hoping that Abcde is over her withdrawal. Breakfast is pancakes and Abcde makes a reasonable effort and Caroline even joins us. Ready for the day we hail an Uber and hit the road. Today we are delaying our arrival at the festival and first going to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Its a short ride and soon we enter the Zoo. We saw a rhino, zebra, giraffes, golden lion monkey, a snake with legs, caimens, penguins, a lion, sea lions and the sea lions show, rode the little train 3 times and had a generally great time. Just before we left we got Abs some milk, Caroline a Chicago dog, and me some chili cheese fries and a beer. This hit the spot well enough that we ended up not ... read more

Short night at work, went in, knocked out the rooms audit and cut out just after 3am. Filled the van with gas on the way home and in bed by 4. Slept till 7:30ish and then showered and got moving, just after 10 we were on the road to Cincinnati. We were picking up the Megabus from the UC Campus so we drove there first and then with some time to kill and empty bellies we went looking for food. Wife was indecisive and we drove far away before turning around and going back to where we began. Caroline was worried about how much time we had so I went for food while she stayed in the car with Abcde. I got a trio combo from Alabama BBQ and while they were fixing it, went 3 ... read more

Today is our first foray into a major metropolitan area on this trip with a journey into downtown Chicago. We are staying at a Doubletree hotel about 20 miles west of the city as the in town hotel rates were astronomical. The hotel is awesome - thanks again Maureen! - but does not come with a free breakfast so we decided to try the place we saw at dinner last night called the Honey Jam Cafe for breakfast. The breakfast was delicious, but the portions were larger than either of us could eat. So after our hearty breakfast we headed into town. Now we usually avoid Interstates when we're traveling on the bike, but when heading in and out of major metropolitan areas, it's always better to take the interstates if possible. Sure enough, by taking ... read more

Today we continue to venture north, but no trip to Indianapolis would be complete without visiting the Brickyard. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum and Hall of Fame was only 10 minutes from our hotel so we had to stop before we continued our journey. Speaking of our hotel last night, we stayed at a La Quinta near the airport, and the room was fine, a little noisy with people running up and down the halls and talking loudly but no more than usual. That is until about 10:30 when someone either had a fight with his girlfriend or was just bored sitting in his room, but he decided to get in his car, open up the doors and crank up his stereo so he could jam to some tunes while playing with his phone. Of course, ... read more