Chicago

We headed up to Chicago for Columbus Day weekend in early October. We had been told that we could do the journey in 6/6.5 hours with no stops but with a short stop, a road closure and no detour signs as we approached the city (thank goodness for GPS) and traffic it took us 7.5hrs and we all felt totally exhausted. Well we did, predictably mini monkey, glad to be freed from the confines of the car, was keen to run around and stretch her legs.

After a short rest we decided to head out for a quick look around the local area before it got dark. We got a great deal on a hotel (we love priceline.com) and were staying two blocks back from Millenium Park so we went straight there. It is full of modern art and sculptures but our two favourites were Jaume Plensa's 50ft high fountain that is basically 2 tall blocks facing each other with images of local residents projected onto them and every 15 minutes the faces 'spit' water out of their mouths. The other was 'the bean', Anish Kapoor's silver-drop sculpture officially called Cloud Gate, it is like a massive, smooth, silver drop of water that reflects the city skyline and the all of the people staring into it. We also discovered that at the back of the park there was a large open air stadium which was holding a free country music festival so we sat right at the back in an open patch of grass and mini monkey got to run around whilst Daddy Monkey drank a beer and I didn't (having recently discovered that I was pregnant - good news!).

The next morning we speed marched to Willis Tower - previously named Sears Tower and currently the tallest building in the States - we had been warned that the queues can get pretty bad so we were glad to find that they were short when we arrived and we probably only waited about 20 minutes to get the lift up to the 103rd floor viewing gallery. There are windows all around to get city views but on one side there are three small bay style windows with glass floors that you can step out into and look down. Mini Monkey was fascinated and would not pose for a photo preferring to spend her time nose to the floor, I made fun of Daddy Monkey for not wanting to step out onto it and then confidently stepped out myself and felt my stomach lurch as I looked down and even I had to admit that it was actually pretty high and a bit scary.

We then hopped onto an open top bus and did a tour around the city sights before getting off at Navy Pier. To be honest this was just a pedestrianised pier full of shops and fast food outlets but we had a good browse and some lunch. We then walked across to Michigan Avenue and the Magnificent Mile which is the main shopping street and wandered around a bit, window shopping, but to be honest we have been so spoilt by the designer outlet centre an hour from our house that we found everything way too overpriced and hadn't really come to Chicago to shop anyway. We then jumped onto a water taxi and did a bit of a boat trip down the Chicago River to the China Town stop where we got off and had a good look around - once we had actually found it!

The next day we got the bus out to Lincoln Park which has a large, free entry Zoo. Mini Monkey absolutely loved it and we saw a mass of animals. The one we all enjoyed the most was the polar bear which had a large swimming tank with a glass wall and as the weather was quite warm the bear was repeatedly swimming underwater widths right up to the glass and around and back again. That evening we listened to a bit more free country music and tried to mentally prepare ourselves for the long drive home the next day.