Sunday, May 30, 2010

The other side of the lake ...

We've just returned home from our weekend in Chicago. I have SO many pictures to look through and edit. Our main purpose for traveling to Chicago was to attend a family wedding ... but I'll have to tell you about that later. We drove to Chicago Friday morning and decided to take the Metra train downtown from Wheaton Station. It's about a 40 minute train ride, very smooth and enjoyable, avoiding all of the hassle of downtown traffic and where-do-we-park problems. We rode the train into the city as far as it would take us, and then we bought a city map and did some serious walking! I got it into my head that I wanted to go to Navy Pier ... a mere 12+ city blocks ~ but it was a perfectly beautiful afternoon and we really had nothing else in mind to do!
This is my first view of the Chicago Harbor Light. It sits on the end of a breakwater that has NO public access!
Navy Pier is a great place to walk, passing the Chicago Marina, all the while with Lake Michigan in plain beautiful sight! See the Ferris wheel? I intended to ride it. I really LOVE Ferris wheels. Mr. Jones was disinclined to join me and I was busy taking pictures (100's of them) ... so this is a picture of the Ferris wheel we did NOT ride!
See the gorgeous tall ship out in the harbor? She is named "Windy" and some day I am going to come back and sail on her!

This is "Windy" docked at Navy Pier. It is a charter sailboat that sails out in the harbor and AROUND the Chicago Light about once every hour or so ...


There is nothing quite as pretty as a lighthouse and sailboat together, is there? (I'm afraid Mr. Jones would differ ... perhaps train tracks and signals?!!)

We walked on the pier for quite awhile. We checked out some eateries down there, but they were pretty pricey and hadn't received very good reviews on the internet ~ I researched it out before we left Grand Rapids! So as we headed back to the Metra station, we walked past lots of places to eat and decided on this cute Irish (yes, Kelly!) pub where I enjoyed wonderful fish and chips and Mr. Jones had their famous Irish Lamb Stew.
I love a big city, don't you? This is the Chicago River. At a few different places along the river, there are high-rise car garages with boat slips to park huge luxury yachts underneath ...
By the time we walked the 12 blocks to the pier and then all the way back to the train station, with a few detours along the way, I really regretted having worn flip-flops instead of a decent walking shoe! Ouch! My feet were killing me! Grandpa Jones and I both looked every single bit our age as we limped onto the train and rode it back to Wheaton ... ah, but walking downtown Chicago and seeing the lighthouse and "Windy" was certainly worth the pain!

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