Chicago!

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Robert

Well, get a little busy and you forget to make a post from two months ago. A while back, in July we went to Chicago for our anniversary, as well as a pre-baby getaway. Now that Kendra is on bedrest this feels even smarter.

What follows is a lot of pictures, none of which has Levi in it.

Here’s a nice picture of us though:

We had a lot of fun on the trip and got to see a lot of stuff.

On our first day there we stopped in at Ginos for some deep dish pizza. This was my preferred deep dish of the two we tried.

We got some fried ravioli for our appetizer since we were going to have to wait a while to get the pizza.

The pizza was great. I really liked the cornmeal crust, it went great with the sauce.

As is tradition we left our names. The knife is apparently not the way they want you to do this.

Eventually I got my pen out and did it the right way.

We stopped by the old water tower on the way towards our evening’s entertainment.

As the marker says, this is one of the few surviving structures from the great fire in 1871.

We also stopped in the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was pretty nice.

They have a really cool gorilla exhibit, which we don’t have in Houston.

Who doesn’t like a cute beaver.

Finally we hit up the Cub’s game at Wrigley Field.

No idea what this is about, but I’m sure there’s a story.

The scores

We got there very early so we could check the whole place out.

As a great surprise Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis threw out the first pitch. They were advertising their new movie, but it was great fun. Halfway through the lead up to the pitch they had some pizza delivered. They even had the player catching the ball come up and get a piece. They then announced the players, which led to more impromptu humor.

About the 8th inning we were already going to head home because Kendra was tired (about 31 weeks pregnant at this point). As we were heading out the sky let loose and it starting pouring down rain. We ended up having to wait a while under the El, which kept us dry until our bus finally came.

This is the view from our hotel room.

Ginos was right across the street from the Allerton.

Our actual room at The James was apparently not available when we got there because of an air conditioning problem. They had a room for us at The Allerton Hotel nearby. It wasn’t quite as nice, but neither is the lack of air conditioning. To make it up for us they gave us a suite when we came back after the first night, so that was nice. Below is our Allerton room.

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry the next day. They had a Mythbuster’s exhibit!

They have a plane in the building. I mean a whole plain. Its pretty impressive. I’m pretty sure they build the hall around it.

They also have a replica of the Wright Brother’s plane. It looks so tiny next to the other planes.

This was a cool way of showing how avalanches work. Its a big spinning disc with sand in it. You can vary the speed to see how avalanches work.

The computer crashed. I always find that humorous.

Mythbusters. It was so cool getting to check out some of the stuff in person and to get an idea of how big some of it is. They also had some exhibits to play with.

A swing held up by phone books.

The water heater. Awesome episode.

Something else they have a lot of in Chicago is Space stuff. I think Jim Lovall is from up there as much of it is related to him.

A moon rock.

These are Ares rockets. They never actually happened, but they were a horrible idea that accounted for a lot of delays on project Orion (my project)

Had to get a hot dog in Chicago. Its not full Chicago style because I don’t like pickles or relish.

Gemini capsule Lovall was on.

They had a very old giant telescope as well.

This is the shark from a few myths.

Finally we got to check out a captured U-boat from World War II. This apparently used to be outside, but now it is several floors under ground in its own area. Very cool and fitting.

I am not built for submarines.

An Apollo capsule.

After that we headed to Buckinham fountain. Married With Children Fans may recognize this.

A concert was going on at Millennium park.

The Bean is an interesting sculpture.

I believe this was Millennium Park, which has some awesome fountains and art.

We had to get a picture of the Wrigley Square sign, since our nephew is named Wrigley.

Giordanos pizza for dinner. We had pizza to go and really enjoyed it.

Sweet Suite at the James Hotel.

The view from our room towards Giordanos.

The view towards Michigan Ave.

Yummy dinner, though like I said, I prefer Gino’s.

There was a Trader Joe’s across the street, so we go dessert. Coconut Ice Cream, awesome for the lactose intolerant like myself.

We went to Shedd Aquarium the next day.

They had a big jelly fish exhibit going.

And more technical difficulties.

This guy was giant. Probably a foot wide. He looked pretty crabby too.

Plastic bottles turned into jelly fish by the aquarium staff.

Outside the aquarium.

Getting a geocache.

Panorama!

I was very excited to see Sue at The Field Museum. She plays a big part in my favorite book series, The Dresden Files.

This is a replica of Lucy, one of the oldest known hominids, basically a proto-human.

Sue’s actual skull. Its a bit squished and also too heavy to go on the body below.

When does the narwhal bacon?

The narwhal bacons at midnight.

We went to the Lego store after the disturbing trip to the American Girl store. It was a good palate cleanser after that scary place.

Then we went for our anniversary dinner at the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the Hancock Tower.

Looking up Hancock tower.

We stopped at the Signature Lounge first, since we were early. On the walls without windows they’ve painted what is on the corresponding side if there were windows.