When I arrived at the airport this morning I was pleasantly surprised. Yesterday I slept in and didn’t check in right at 7:21 AM, the result of which was I was 3rd or 4th on the upgrade list (despite my 1K status) and only 2 first class seats were available. I touched the kiosk to review my seat choices and found I was reassigned to seat 2F in first class.
Upon arrival in Chicago I retrieved the rental car and checked into my hotel, DoubleTree hotel in Skokie . After checking in I drove to the closest CTA parking lot and rode the “L” to downtown Chicago. The all day pass is only $10 and parking was only $2.
I left the “L” at Jackson (Red Line) and went to Grant Park where the “Taste of Chicago” was this weekend. I didn’t eat anything, but I did take some pictures of Buckingham Fountain that was in the park.
Below picture is of an interesting building I found on my way to Grant Park.
Below picture is in Grant Park at the entrance of Taste of Chicago.
Below is one of the pictures of Buckingham Fountain. I still need to tweak the white balance a bit because I was using my 10 stop neutral density filter to take the picture.
I then walked to Millennium Park and took pictures of the “Cloud Gate”. Unfortunately there were many people around.
Below picture was taken in the Millenium Park.
Below photo is of the “Cloud Gate”
Below pictures were taken along the “Magnificent Mile”
From the “Cloud Gate” I walked the “Magnificent Mile” north to the John Hancock building. I went to the 94th floor observatory and also rode in the tilting windows. I’m planning to go back Monday night as they allow tripods on Mondays. The view from the 94th floor was nice and you could see the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower clearly.
Below are pictures of the John Hancock building. Up near the top you can see the ~8 glass panes tilted out from the building.
Below pictures are from the observation deck at 360 Chicago.
At this point I was hungry…. I looked up Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria and there was one near the Chicago River. I walked the Magnificient Mile south and started to walk along the riverwalk. I bumped into one of my former colleagues who I warned I was going to be in town – but didn’t actually make plans to meet. When we arrived to the Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria the line was insane, so we took a bus north to one further away from the tourists and a shorter wait.
Below picture is of a slice of my pizza – sausage.
After dinner I took the “L” train back and stopped at 7-11 for water and a Slurpee.
Below picture is of my room at the DoubleTree hotel.
