Spring Break Week has officially begun, and we have kicked off our vacation in Chicago! Will and I had such a great time in Chicago when we went a few months ago that we decided to go back and take the kids, too. Chicago is about a 10-hour drive from Manhattan (although longer with children who need to stop...) so it was doable to do a quick family road trip there. We left this morning and will return on Friday!
We had plans of getting up at 5:00 a.m., but alas, did not actually get up until closer to 7:00 a.m. We did get to see a beautiful sunrise in town, though.
Kids were bouncing with excitement. Annika is tired of pictures, however.
Downtown Kansas City - crossing into Missouri.
Iowa! I kept offering to sing the song from The Music Man called "The Iowa Way," but shockingly, no one took me up on my offer.
This was my favorite road sign on our entire trip. I actually giggled.
Crossing the Mighty Mississippi into Illinois.
Almost missed the sign, but here it is....Illinois, The Land of Lincoln.
Our whole drive was very smooth until we got to within an hour of Chicago, and then had stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper traffic for the rest of the drive. We did hit the Chicago suburbs right about rush hour due to our poor planning, and the traffic seemed just as bad going into the city as coming out.
The Sears Tower! We are indoctrinating our children with its "correct" name, notwithstanding this "Willis Tower" business.
The Chicago Stock Exchange.
The hotel garage where we are staying is so ridiculously over-priced that Will and I both almost laughed when we heard the price. Instead, we are parked at merely over-priced (but not ridiculous) surface lot a few blocks away. Daniel was somewhat dismayed by the industrial nature of the alley we walked through.
In our hotel room. The children begrudgingly posed for one picture and then went on a Photo Strike.
It's hard to see, but the Field Museum is off in the left-hand corner over my shoulder below. We are staying right on Michigan Avenue near all of the museums and the location can't be beat. The hotel itself seems like it hasn't been updated since the early 1980s, but we intend to be Out and About most of our time here.
View outside of our hotel at night with the skyscrapers off in the distance.
After dinner, we hit CVS to purchase breakfast items for tomorrow and other foodstuffs. Annika is clearly not posing. The highlight of the event for the children was encountering a Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition magazine and staring in shock at the cover.
Annika - "The girls aren't wearing any bras!!!"
Daniel - "And you can see their butts!!"
Oh yes. Thanks for keeping it classy, Sports Illustrated.
Daniel and Will went over to check out the hotel pool later tonight while Annika and I hunkered down in the room. The report was that the pool was a chilly 82 degrees, but that you could warm up right away and it was a nice, big area with a glass roof high overhead. We will have to have a whole family trip there.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!! We are looking forward to hitting the town tomorrow and taking the kids to some of our favorite places here.
No comments:
Post a Comment