We were heading toward Navy Pier. It was crowded with tourists and fast food chains. We did ride the ferris wheel. We saw out into Lake Michigan and right into the tall buildings right in front of the city.

Left to right: Audrey, Rinn, Sam, Lucas

After our ride on the ferris wheel, we stopped in Haagen Dazs for ice cream. We had done a lot of walking today and we were ready to take a rest. When we had regained our energy, we explored the Navy Pier Mall to find a Build a Bear Workshop where we decided to stop. Lucas and Rinn built a toothless dragon from the movie How to Train Your Dragon and Sam built a bunny who she named Oliver.

After we hung around Navy Pier, we headed towards our 7:30 showing of Assassination Theatre show that my Aunt Brenda had hooked us up with tickets to see. It was about JFK’s assassination and the conspiracy around it. It used real sources to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the only shooter and how it was all staged.

We all enjoyed it. Myself, being the technical theatre geek I am was extremely happy with the lighting and sound. Tomorrow we are going to the Field Museum then likely going shopping afterwards.

Today we went to the Art Institute of Chicago where Audrey’s Grandmother works. Before we left for the train into the city, we packed ourselves lunches for a picnic before we met up to go into the Art Institute. We ate in the gardens outside of the building where statues of a variety of things were placed.

We were in for a treat when Audrey’s Grandma took us into where she work in the storage area for the Arms and Armory. We got to see people working to take pictures of some of the pieces. She took us into the storage area where the collection of armor, guns, spears, swords, and miniature cannons were stored.

The group looks at the armor and swords

After we got to see the storage area, we were free to look at the rest of the museum. We all enjoyed it from Vincent Van Gogh to miniature rooms. After we had gone through the museum and through the gift shop we set out to find our way to the Hard Rock Cafe to meet up with my Aunt Brenda.

After the 1.6 mile walk, we had finally arrived with empty stomachs. The restaurant was covered all about with guitars and jackets from many musiciens. Service was fantastic, food was good, music was ok, but those fries. Those french fries were amazing. We took them back to the house with us and will probably have them for breakfast tomorrow (maybe not breakfast, but probably for lunch).

From left to right: Audrey, Sam, Lucas, Rinn, Ian, and Brenda

My Aunt Brenda recommended we go see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Millennium Park so she gave us a ride over there. The park was packed all the way back to the gardens. We enjoyed a good portion of the performance till we started to feel a couple of light rain drops. We decided to head towards Union Station for the 8:35 train.

The train ride back to Deerfield has a story all of its own. I will be writing it shortly and will put it at the bottom of this post. It will not be featured in the blog.

It was time to hit the city. As we prepared back at the house, we got information about which train stop to go to and when the train would come. We played games as we waited on the platform. When the train arrived at Union Station, we headed out toward Shedd Aquarium, where we looked at turtles and touched stingrays.

Lucas touches a stingray

From the aquarium, we went on the hunt for food. We stumbled upon Fontano’s Subs. Audrey had a meatball sub while the rest of us had slices of pizza. After our meal, we went into Millennium Park to look at the fountains and The Bean. We had officially become touristy tourists with our pictures at The Bean.

Tomorrow, we plan on going to the Art Institute of Chicago for more touristy tourist adventures.

I’m so glad that I chose to take this trip with my friends. We were very much ahead of schedule, even with the late start. Often we would spend a good hour or so in each of the few towns we stopped in. We went to a thrift shop, ice cream store, KMart, and the beach.

Left to Right: Ian, Sam, Lucas, Rinn, Audrey

Out of the two beaches we stopped at, one in Coldwater and the other in New Buffalo, we found the New Buffalo beach was much more enjoyable.We didn’t go swimming, but a couple of us expanded our rock collections.

We decided to head our way onto the interstate into chicago from Chesterton, IN. We hit a bit of traffic, but nothing terrible. A thunderstorm rolled over us as we drove. The semi-trucks kept spraying up water from their ties onto my windshield as I passed them. At one point, a car from the southbound freeway hit a puddle and the water landed a direct hit onto the windshield.

We made it safely into Deerfield, IL. Our first morning we plan on sleeping in as we are all moderately tired from the long drive. More to come soon, so keep an eye out.