Life in the Big Cheese: Chicagoland!

Our weekend adventure in the Windy City

Kevin and I spent our first weekend in Chicago July 27 - 29, 2012. Kevin has been to Chicago once before, but it was several years ago. We stopped and had lunch in Chicago on our way to the Jim Gaffigan show in Joilet, IL... but this was my first official visit!

CHICAGO IS SUCH A COOL CITY! In fact, I think it's my favorite city I've ever visited. It probably helped that we stayed in the best part of the city... Michigan Avenue. We arrived on Friday night; it literally took an entire hour to get into the heart of the city and find our hotel. It's a huge city and they even have double decker streets (weird huh?). We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel on Michigan Ave. Since we got into town late, we decided to have dinner in the Angels & Kings restaurant in the hotel and had a few drinks at the bar. They had fun cocktails that were really yummy, except for Kevin's hot sauce cocktail (yuck!).

We kept Friday night an easy night because Saturday was our BIG day. On Saturday morning, we ordered room service for breakfast and then, we rode the "L" to Wrigley Field to see the St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Chicago Cubs. Such a neat and historic park. In fact, Kevin's grandpa grew up on the Southside of Chicago, so it was cool to be in the city that he grew up in. We're not sure if he ever made it to Wrigley, but it still made us think about him. Overall, the Cards lost.. boo.

After the game, we went to this great burger joint beside Wrigley. We rode the L back to our side of town. It's called the "Elevated" technically because it's an elevated subway for the most part. You hear it called the "L" and the "EL." The train/subway is pretty cool and very crowded. We came back to our hotel and changed before we went to McCormick & Schmick's for dinner. It was a great seafood restaurant in walking distance from our hotel. Great food, but kind of poor service.

On Sunday, we had to keep it fast-paced because we had to pick the dogs up from the boarder by 5 pm. We woke up early and went to Millennium Park. I had to see the Famous Bean! It's a pretty interesting piece of art. I cannot imagine how someone created it. It looks like a mirror (see pictures below). After we walked around Millennium Park, we went and had breakfast. By this time, we only had a few short hours to spend in the city, so we had some important decisions to make... The Magnificent Mile or The Aquarium. We decided since we had such a short amount of time it would make more sense to drive through the Magnificent Mile and head over to Navy Pier and go to the Aquarium. On my next visit, I plan to spend some time and some $$ on the Mile. Navy Pier is BEAUTIFUL! It has bright blue water and sailboats for days! It's hard to believe it's Lake Michigan - looks just like an ocean.

I was sad to leave the city!! Although, I'm excited to visit again in October when Betsy and Amber come to visit!! I definitely know a few spots to take them!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip:

Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field was built in 1914 - Such a historic Park! There are a few tall buildings (probably around 15) beside the Park that have bleachers on top of them, so people can watch the game without paying the price!