Thank You Chicago!

Why do you blog?

I’m hijacking the daily prompt today and steering it away from the overall general reason I blog. Which, since it asked, the reason is because I like writing and I hope that by sharing my thoughts about things I have experienced, I can give a little hope, inspiration, entertainment, etc. to whoever reads my words.

With that said, I’m blogging today to share more details about my first experience in downtown Chicago. Overall, it was such a fun time! I loved the whole trip. Short though it was, I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it.

We started the journey downtown (cue Petula Clark singing “Downtown”) on the train from New Lenox.

The ride was fun because I’m used to trains like the metro in D.C. which is more of a smooth, don’t touch the third rail kind of ride. This was an honest to goodness bumpy on the rails kind of train. Pretty cool!

The journey ended at Lasalle Street. And even as we approached, I was craning my neck to see the skyline out the window. I was wanting to see the Sears tower. I know it’s called the Willis tower now, but I’ve always known it as the Sears tower, and so that’s what I called it the whole time we were there. From what I gather, the locals prefer the original name too.

Before I continue with the next thing I saw that tickled me, you have to know that “The Fugitive” is one of my favorite movies. It came out when I was a kid and my dad loved it! So growing up, we watched that movie many, many times on VHS. Now, whenever it comes on t.v. I stop and watch it. I appreciate so much that my brother-in-law knew the movie as well as I did and being that he’s from the area, he was great for identifying places from the movie. (My brother-in-law works in law enforcement and at one point either trained, or worked with the U.S. Marshalls and so commuted to the federal building for work).

Back to the sights…when we left the train station, we soon walked under the El. This was exciting because in “The Fugitive”, there’s a whole scene where they figure out Richard Kimble is back in Chicago because he calls his attorney from a pay phone and they can hear a train in the background. There’s a discussion about the train specifically being elevated. So obviously, I had to pause and listen to the sound of an elevated train. You know, in case I ever have to track down a fugitive and use the sound of a train as a clue.

Our first destination was the bean. My sister led us to an area where she was convinced the bean was, contrary to her husband’s directions. I didn’t know any better, but even I know we should have listened to the guy who has lived here his whole life. He loved her enough to hold in the snarky “I told you so” that I know he was wanting to say.

Instead of the bean, where we stopped had a hot dog booth and so one bucket list item got checked off my list.

I ate an authentic Chicago-style hot dog in the actual city of Chicago. It had everything it was supposed to have, including the celery salt. (Not gonna lie, I did feel a little tear developing while I watched them prepare the hot dogs. I’m sentimental like that.)

Also, this experience proved to me that I can never be famous because my niece had my phone pointed at me to capture the moment. But so did my sister and brother-in-law, you know, in case a 9 year old didn’t capture the best pictures. So it took me a few minutes to calm down my giggles from standing there with people filming me while I was attempting to eat a hot dog. The hot dog was damn worth the silly feeling though! Good gracious was it good!

After that, my brother-in-law told me that we were near the fountain that was in the opening credits of the show “Married With Children”. I loved that show and completely forgot that it was based in Chicago. So obviously I wanted to see it.

The area around the fountain was filled with people doing all sorts of things. When we first walked up, we witnessed a proposal. She said yes, by the way, and so we clapped and yelled congratulations as they hugged and kissed. There was also photos being taken of what we concluded was a girl ready for her quinceanera. On the food front, there were lots of carts selling ice cream and other goodies. My sister got a street corn in a cup which was pretty good. No pictures of that.

Afterwards, it was onward to the bean. There was a big jazz festival going on in the area so we had to wait in line to walk through metal detectors to get up to the area where the bean was. I asked my brother-in-law if it’s always like that and two ladies in front of us turned around and said no. I certainly couldn’t blame them for wanting extra security around a crowded event like that.

The bean was just so fun! I took a few selfies, but then my unofficial social media manager—aka, my sister, took over the photos and made me pose in fun ways. Again, I felt ridiculous considering there were a lot of people there and she was telling me to lay on my belly underneath it. To her credit, the pictures turned out adorable and fun and I am happy I went along with her directions.

My pictures:

My sister’s pictures along with my youngest niece who had no problem whatsoever posing like we did:

After the bean, I told my sisters that I didn’t care where we went next. I had eaten my hot dog and saw the bean, whatever they wanted to do was fine. They decided to take me to the river walk where we would look for a place to eat dinner.

As we left the area, we walked by the amphitheater where the jazz festival was going on and paused to listen to the music for a moment.

At one point as we walked toward the river, we spotted a Garrett’s popcorn. I got a lot of recommendations for that from the people on Threads, so we stopped in.

Based on the recommendations, I got the Chicago mix. I was leery about it because it’s a mix of caramel and cheese flavors, but you know what? It works! I didn’t open my bag because I planned to take it back home and share with my husband. But I did sample from my sister’s bag so I could taste it. (Sorry honey, I may be digging into my bag today though. I’ll do my best to save you some!)

Continuing on, I took pictures of lots of interesting looking buildings. I didn’t get to do the architecture river cruise but I

definitely want to next time.

I think seeing the river dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day is my next goal for a city visit.

We didn’t get pizza for dinner. Apparently we would have had to keep walking to a whole other area to get to where those restaurants were. My brother-in-law said that next time we’ll drive in to do that so we don’t have to walk as far from the train station to get to them.

Instead, we settled on a place called O’Briens Riverwalk Cafe. Nothing all that special about the food, but it was good. I got a steak sandwich and enjoyed it while watching the boats go down the river. We didn’t stay for the fireworks on the Navy Pier, but to be fair, we saw the barge carrying the fireworks go by as we were eating. So, technically, I saw the fireworks.

After we ate, we decided to head back to the train station to leave. I knew there was going to be a lot of walking, and I did wear good shoes, but we had already gone to a local fall/craft festival earlier in the day that was a lot of walking and I was pre-tired before we arrived downtown. I was grateful to start going back.

My brother-in-law took us down streets back to the station that he thought I would find interesting. And they were!

This was the after-picture, lol! Thoroughly exhausted, but so happy!

This was such a fun experience! Truly. To the Chicago natives on Threads who gave me such great recommendations and wished me a good trip, thank you! Seriously. Your words echoed in my head as I walked through the city. I will absolutely be coming back. On future trips, I want to actually go into the buildings we saw and not just ooh and aah from the outside. So again, thank you Chicago for allowing this southern gal to experience your city and take some truly fun pictures that felt cringey to me to pose for but really just added to the fun. I tried my best to not be an annoying tourist. I really did. I’ll try harder next time. Until then…