A Visit To Chicago
Last week during a extended Forth of July weekend, I traveled to Chicago with my sister Carrie to go visit my other sibling, Tim, and his fiance Sanober. It was a great vacation trip as I finally got to see where my little bro lives and visit his new digs of Chicago. It was my first time visiting the city and I must say it’s a very cool place. I can see why Tim loves it so much. I’d be very jealous of him if I wasn’t moving to San Francisco soon. 
It was a packed vacation full of visits to interesting places and tasty eating establishments. The weather was amazing for most of the trip (sunny, low 80s, low humidity), which made it perfect for walking all over the city, which if you don’t know, is full of great public parks that were full of people walking, running, cycling, and rollerblading. I must admit, had almost as much fun just walking around the city and the parks as I did some of the places we went.
Day 1
The Lincoln Park Zoo
Most of day one was time spent visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo, which to my amazement is free and open to the public. Most would think that free equals crappy, but that just wasn’t rue in this case. The Lincoln Park Zoo was a great zoo, filled with happy, healthy animals from all over the world. My favorites had to be the Apes and the Polar Bears. Unfortunately, the windows in the Ape house caused huge glares with the camera in my phone, so sadly no pictures. Hopefully, Tim will post some of the great pictures he got with his high end SLR. *wink, wink*
A Black Rino enjoys its meal in the shade.
The jaguar manged to stand still for a few seconds so that I could get a good shot.
A lioness enjoyed sun bathing atop her rock perch.
Day 2
The Field Museum
Unfortunately, we lost part of the morning this day as we slept in. We were just so tired from the day before (we flew into Chicago early in the morning of Day 1). After finally getting going, we spent the afternoon at The Field Museum. Time was short, but we did manage to get in two of the major exhibits running right now, Mythic Creatures and Nature Unleashed. Both were really well done, even though the earthquake section of Nature Unleashed had a little too much San Francisco references for my liking. 
Sitting outside on the museum steps, enjoying the lovely day.
Buckingham Fountain and Millennium Park
After the museum, we took the subway north a few stops and walked down Michigan Ave to see the famous Buckingham Fountain and Millennium Park. Millennium Park is full of amazing art pieces, interesting architecture and cool landscaping. We liked the park so much that we stuck around this area for the fireworks show that night.
Chicago’s famous subway that sits high above the streets.
The highlight of Millennium Park, the cool Cloud Gate.
Carrie and I in the crazy reflection of the “Bean”.
Day 3
A Day Off
By this day we were all a little pooped from walking around so much that we decided to just chill and hang out. We hung out at Tim and Sanober’s place and watched a movie on Tim’s huge HDTV and then drove up to the north part of the city and did a little shopping at this huge mall. The night was capped off by some amazing Indian food at Tim and Sanober’s favorite Indian place, Sabri.
Day 4
Architecture Boat Tour and Navy Pier
Our last day was spent with Sanober (Tim had to work) taking us down to Navy Pier to catch a very cool and interesting boat tour that traveled down the Chicago River. It was loads of fun traveling down the river that runs through the heart of the city all while learning the history of the various buildings that occupy downtown. After the tour we walked around the crowded Pier that was filled with other tourists… almost too many if you ask me. The day ended with some famous deep dish Chicago pizza from Giordano’s before we headed out to the airport to catch our flight home.
The start of the boat tour.
Looking up at the sky line from the boat tour.
Overall, it was a great trip and I want to thank Tim and Sanober again for having us out to visit. We had so much fun and I can’t wait to come and visit again soon!