Chicago 2

The city of Chicago has a wonderful variety of architecture, from the 1800's to the most modern. However, when I read more about some of the buildings on the Internet, I found that some of the most modern looking were at least 20 years old. These two buildings at the Marina were built in the late 70's and remodeled about 10 years ago. They look like corn on the cob. The upper part has 450 pie-shaped apartments, and the bottom has room for 450 cars.

We saw one that looked like a castle. It turned out to be the water building for the city, built more than 100 years ago. We walked on Michigan Av one day, looking at the people and stores. Susan got tired and rode in the stroller, then fell asleep, so she missed the castle. Her allegiance is changing from Dora to the Disney princesses, especially Cinderella. Silvia bought her some "princess" shoes in the Disney store.

We finished the day by going to Millennium Park. The picture of Susan with the purple shoes is taken under "Cloud Gate", a huge metal sculpture that looks like a drop of Mercury. Another thing we saw in the park was a changing display of glass bricks with pictures of people of Chicago. We saw it just a the light was going. There are places in the park for musical events, art displays, a prairie garden, a fountain, a bridge. It's a wonderful park. I was impressed by another park too, Grant. It contains several museums, gardens, a sculpture garden, a display of globes (similar to the horses in Amarillo). We didn't have time to visit the museums. I'll have to save that for another time, but we walked in the park and gardens. The first thing we saw was a huge sculpture called "Agora". It consists of figures without heads or arms and larger than life size. I don't know how many there were, probably 100. We liked the globes. They have been painted and decorated with the theme of green Earth. We took a water taxi from that end of the park to Navy Pier, an amusement park.



In front of the Children's Museum was another small park. Some little girls were in their bathing suits playing in the fountain. There were mosaic areas depicting the ocean and Chicago history. I liked best the life-sized figures of children playing 'crack the whip'.

Chicago

Susan, Silvia, and I left Canyon on Friday about 2 to drive to Ft. Worth. We spent the night in Wichita Falls so we wouldn't have to do the whole trip before 1 pm in one day. We got there in plenty of time to get food, park the car, eat, go to the water park and spend a lot of time waiting. The train that should have left at 2:30 didn't go until nearly 4. The attendant got us seats together so we could spread out. We were fairly cold the whole trip.

It was amazing to me to see the crepe myrtles. Some of them must have been 20 feet tall. There were also fields of small ones that may have been nurseries. Sunday morning we watched the Missouri River flow by the train. We got a great view of the St. Louis Arch. We had too much luggage. You should have seen us with 2 suitcases on wheels, 2 smaller bags, a stroller, and a lunch cooler. Too much stuff!

I think we liked the observation car best. It had big windows, tables and benches. We sat there quite a while Sat. evening and again Sunday. There was a snack shop downstairs from the OC, so we could get breakfast food there. There was also a dining car, but we didn't try it.

On Monday we went to South Bend, IN, to take care of Silvia's business at Better Books. Susan and I spent some time in a hammock reading books. They were very nice to us. Silvia told me they get books from libraries and other places, then sell them or donate them to foreign countries. Silvia ended up getting 20 boxes which hold 1000 to 1200 books each.

Today we went to Gurnee Mills Outlet mall. It turned out to be not worth the time it took to get there. We looked for new shoes for Susan because she has already outgrown the ones she came with. There were some in her size, but nothing she and her mother both liked. We had to have the rental car back by 5 at O'Hare.

In the car there was a GPS device. It helped a lot getting around both in Indiana and in the Chicago area. Silvia programs it with where we are going. It already knows where we are. Before she gets to an intersection where she has to turn, it will say "2 miles to ____ ramp on the right", then "_____ramp on the right in .5 miles", then "____ ramp on the right now", then "bong, bong" and that is the exact time to turn or go off. We haven't gotten lost too many times, and when we do get lost, it just recalculates and tells where to go from that point. I don't believe I'll ever rent a car in an unfamiliar place again unless it has the GPS.

Time to quit for today.