Chicago River Tour

This has been on my bucket list ever since we moved to Chicago. I love the scene from My Best Friend's Wedding where Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney take in the sights from a river tour and I've wanted to experience that myself. With Elizabeth and Vanessa in town, it was the perfect excuse to go. 

The walk by the river was beautiful- and we weren't even on the boat yet!

We spotted this little alleyway on our way to the dock and I had to snap a picture. It reminds me of Coco and the colorful banner looked so festive! Elizabeth borrowed a top from Liesel and I think she blends right in.

The corn cob buildings have a central elevator and then the apartments are shaped like slices of pie with a balcony for each one. The bathrooms and kitchens are at the narrow end while the living areas and bedrooms occupy the wide end. Renting a one bedroom here costs the same as our mortgage.

This one was known as the Jewelers Building and our tour guide said jewelers often carried their merchandise around with them making them susceptible to muggings. To ensure safety, they could drive their car into the building and into a special car elevator which would drop them off right on the floor they worked on. Over time, cars became wider and longer and eventually they had to abandon the garage and transitioned them to more office space. On the northeast corner there's an ornate clock with Father Time on top which was gifted by the Elgin Watch Company. At the time of the building's completion they had general offices there and Father Time was part of their logo.

The Wrigley Building is covered in six different shades of glazed terra cotta increase in brightness as the building rises. Occasionally the entire building is hand-washed to preserve the terra cotta and at the night it is brightly lit with floodlights. It was also Chicago's first building with air-conditioning. William Wrigley Jr worked as a soap salesman for his father. He found when he offered a freebie alongside the product- in this case baking powder- sales took off. He shifted to selling baking powder and offered chewing gum as the freebie. When those sales took off, he presented the gum at the World's Columbian World Exposition (where Juicy Fruit was introduced) and began marketing to a younger crowd. He also suggested placing the gum display cases by the checkout so he could cash in on impulse purchases and that is where they can be found today.

Some individual pics as we headed out to Lake Michigan. You can see Trump Tower there in the background. After Trump slapped his name on the building with obnoxious 20ft letters, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and city council quickly passed an ordinance banning any such sign in the future. 

Many buildings lining the Chicago River use specially colored glass to mimic the unique color of the water (made by a combination of a clay bottom, lake water and algae). 

Of course, it gets a lot more green when they dye it on St. Patrick's Day- originally an accident when plumbers used fluorescein dye to trace sources of illegal pollution discharges.

That slim, tall building on the left is the St. Regis and is the tallest structure in the world designed by a woman. You can see the "blow through" floor to keep the building from swaying too much in the wind.

I thought the heat and humidity would cool down a bit once we went out onto Lake Michigan but it was still hot and muggy. In spite of this, the girls really enjoyed going onto the main deck and snapping photos. Fair warning: they took lots of photos!

I love this one. I'm pretty careful to get individual photos of the girls as well as the usual group photo but I need to be better at pictures of them in pairs.

I had curled my hair for the day and that went out the window- I had to pull it up and off my neck to keep cool!

These three were fascinated by watching the boat dock.

More pictures by the river.

We learned the 4 stars in the Chicago flag stand for Fort, Fire, Fair and Fair. The first star commemorates Fort Dearborn . The second is represents the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The third star  the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Finally, the fourth star represents the Century of Progress International Exposition of 1933. This plaque is near the dock where we took the architecture tour.

I was so excited to try and get a recreation of the parade scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off but the girls were getting hangry and just wanted to move on. Turns out I have them bobbing their heads to the wrong side- oops.

But you get it, right?

Aye de mi- getting to lunch was a bit of a debacle. Finding parking in downtown Chicago is tricky and I have a handful of spots I know are almost always open. Our next stop was the Hancock Tower but when we talked about lunch, Liesel ruled out something nearby and then Vanessa noticed there was an Eataly. However, it was another mile walk and did I mention it was hot and humid out? I was kind of ready to kill Liesel for being such a pill and man, I let her know it.

We were all soaked with sweat by the time we got to Eataly but the lunch (which Vanessa graciously paid for) was phenomenal. Vanessa and I shared the Bruschetta alle Pesche e Ricotta: Summer peach marmellata, olive oil-whipped ricotta, basil, fennel pollen.

Most of the girls got pizza but they could choose what shape it came in so there was a bunny:

Butterfly:

Heart:

Liesel is like me and some plain, buttered noodles are just what the doctor ordered now and again.

Ireland had her with some marinara sauce:

This was amazing, the Agnolotti del Plin Brasato: Housemade pork & veal-filled pasta, Urbani truffle pecorino, black truffle butter

Not my favorite, but also good was the Vesuvio con Salsiccia e Peperoni: Alfetra spiral pasta, housemade pork sausage, roasted peppers, Pecorino Romano, wild oregano.

After cooling off and filling up, we had a boost of energy and made our way back to the Hancock Tower (Brent graciously called to let them know we were running late).

 

I know everyone makes a big deal of the Sears Tower, but I think this one has much better views:

Haha- OK so that's not a view out the window but I still think it's a pretty cute perspective from the mirrored ceiling. 

OK, back story on this picture- the girls had brought their American Girl dolls along because we were headed there next. Turns out it was closed by the time we got there so it didn't work out but anyway, as I took this picture I had a little pile of their bags and dolls. In the corner, just to the right of Sydney was a family with a little girl who clearly had just bought an American Girl doll. While we sat on the benches and admired the views, she took the box out of the bag and angled it towards the girls like, "Look at me! I'm one of you! I have one too!" I pointed her out to the girls and suggested they go say hi, which they did. This girl just seemed so shy but she so clearly wanted to connect with them, it was adorable.

In line with Pride Month was this fabulous window display so Liesel shed her top to show off her swimsuit underneath.

Not sure why I didn't get all the lettering in my photo- I think I was just exhausted by this time. 

You get the idea- it's a really tall building!

From here we headed to Crowne Fountain to finally let the girls cool off! I think this was their favorite part of the day.

The spitting faces never gets old.

While the girls were enjoying themselves, our neighbor's dog (who Liesel was technically in charge of) got out when Brent was feeding him. He spent the rest of the day trying to track him down and Liesel was in tears because we had to call the family. Once I was home I helped Brent look until after midnight and the family cut their vacation short to look. We felt awful and I mean awful. I'd already been hard on Liesel and Brent was doubling down on her.

Last, last stop was the MOSI. We had tickets to the IMAX theater and briefly hit the highlights. 

I always see something I've never noticed before and this time it was the cross-section of a ballet slipper. I can't believe how flimsy it looks!

Even though it was really late, we stopped by Portillo's for dinner. The line was unusually long and not moving very fast. Vanessa ordered a hot dog and couldn't find it in the sack so we waited while they made it up. While Liesel was handing out food, she found it at the very bottom and she said, "Oh no, Mom?" and then burst into tears. It had just been a DAY for the poor girl. I told her she wasn't in trouble and I hadn't ordered anything so I would eat it. She was just frazzled down to her very last nerve. 

It was quite a day but we hit a lot of the Chicago highlights and could relax a bit.