(Dude. I was today years old before I noticed that the word ‘Millennium’ has not one, but TWO Ns in it. Mind blown. In all humility, I’m actually a very excellent speller, so I was very surprised that I had never realized that. Ok. Onto your regularly scheduled programming…)
Today, we went into downtown Chicago to do some exploring. And Jonathan planned it all. Because he is the most handsome. And I am still feeling a little planned-out.
And of course, we started off with one of Chicago’s most iconic spots: Millennium Park and the Bean (aka Cloud Gate). I have to say, the Bean is quite an impressive sculpture in person. It was a lot bigger than I expected it to be. And it was fun to see how it distorted everyone’s reflection.
After we had walked around and under the Bean, we moved on to our next destination. We went by way of the BP pedestrian bridge which took us on a meandering path up and over the freeway. It is a really cool bridge that felt like a work of art in its own right. And we had amazing views the entire way. Plus it was just such a beautiful day. Life is good.
On the other side of the freeway is Maggie Daley Park, which is a huge and really amazing playground. We started off on the swings near the boat themed playground area. Both were a hit. And I can tell you from experience, that the swings were high quality.
Everyone started getting a little hungry, and so we took a few minutes for a snack break. Once everyone was feeling a little more satiated, we went and checked out another part of the park: The Slide Crater. We ended up spending quite a while here. The kids absolutely loved it. It has a big suspension bridge that goes between two large towers and as it is called a slide crater, there were also a bunch of different slides. The biggest one was closed but there were still plenty of options.
Eventually, after we had spent at least an hour in the Slide Crater, we dragged our children away from the park so that we could go to our final sight that we wanted to see.
Fortunately, we only had a short way to walk to get to our next destination, down by the river: The Riverwalk. The Riverwalk is a 1.25 mile pedestrian walkway that goes along the bank of the Chicago River. It is down below the level of the street, and so there is some separation from all the traffic.
And it is basically like you are walking through a canyon of skyscrapers. It was so beautiful. There were lots of little shops and restaurants along the way.
And there were a lot of really lovely buildings as well. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk along the river. There were lots of boats and people on kayaks floating down the river. It is quite the little highway!
We eventually found a ramp that took us back up to street level and we started making our way back to our car. (Funny story. Jonathan now has the better phone camera, and so sometimes I steal his phone so that I can take pictures. And we totally got separated. I stopped to take a couple pictures, and when I turned back around, he and the kids were straight up gone. And I had all the phones. We found each other pretty quickly. But it was just a brief reminder of how things used to be back in the before times when we didn’t have “Find my Friends.”)
By this point, Jonathan and I were quite ravenous. We had both snacked as minimally as we could earlier in the day, so that there would be enough snacks to keep complaining at bay. The kids had played hard and so they were a little hungrier than usua.
Fortunately, in my previous research, I had learned about an excellent pizza place near our Airbnb that had Chicago style deep dish pizza. So, Jonathan dropped the kids and I off at home, and he went to pick up the pie. Meanwhile, I got some pasta ready for the kids (we rightly assumed that this might not be their favorite way to eat pizza)
And when he got home we dug in. It was SO DELICIOUS. Oh man. I was very happy. After we had eaten, we did a movie night and put the kids to bed.
What a great day. Yay Chicago!
