We started off our second day with a Segway tour of the Lakefront and Museum Campus. When we were looking at things to do, I jokingly told David, “We could do a Segway tour,” but I was really thinking we would never do something so nerdy. He actually thought that sounded pretty awesome, so we booked it. It ended up being our favorite thing we did. We got lucky and we were the only 2 signed up for that particular tour, so we got to go at our own pace and have time for lots of pictures. You start off by spending a few minutes to learn how to ride it. It’s a bit intimidating at first, but you figure it out pretty quickly.
We spent a lot of time touring Grant Park which is a majority of the Lakefront area. I wish I could remember all of the historical details, but basically at some point they passed a law that said you couldn’t develop that area. We learned some things about how people have gotten around it (such as build buildings over the rail lines because it was air space they were building on and not land space). We learned about the different buildings, though I couldn’t remember enough to actually repeat it.
Some shots of the park and skyline.
This is Buckingham Fountain. It has nothing to do with England. It was named after the person who donated it. Can’t remember who, or why. They turn it off in the winter, and I believe this was the first day it was off (figures, right?) because we thought we saw it running from the Willis Tower the day before.
To the very right is Navy Pier. I will get back to that later.
Here is the view of the skyline from the Museum Campus (between the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium).
This is the view from the Alder Planetarium. If you remember the last post, this was the building that was on a peninsula almost; still on the Museum Campus, but further out.
Riding up to Soldier Field, which is right across the street from the Field Museum.
Looking at Field Museum from Soldier Field.
Shots of Soldier Field:
These are the old benches before the built the new stadium. Not a great view, and not very comfortable.
And then a few more pictures of our ride back:
With our tour guide Aaron
We didn’t make it to the Millenium Park area of Grant Park because someone spent too much time taking pictures at Soldier Field. :) It was right by where we started, so we ventured over to get some pictures at Cloud Gate (or the Bean).
The bridge to get to the park.
The amphitheatre
The Bean
This is the view from underneath
From there we took a bus up to Navy Pier. We were going to get bikes to ride back down to the Field Museum, pick up tickets to ride on the rides at the Pier, and get our tickets for the River Architecture Cruise (we used our Go-Chicago Pass for all of the above, and you have to redeem it before 5:00). It was starting to get overcast at the time, and they said that the latest River Cruise (at 6:00) was cancelled because it was probably going to rain. This was a bit of a bummer because A) we wanted to have a sunset cruise, and B) it meant that we wouldn’t have as much time to spend at the Field Museum. We (again mostly me) debated riding the Ferris Wheel now while we knew it was open, but decided to risk it since we were in such a hurry (and starving!). We did get a picture though.
Then we went and grabbed our bikes and headed back for the Museum Campus. There was a sandwich shop that I spotted when we were walking to the Segway tour in the morning, so I decided we should go there for lunch and try to get something that at least attempted to be healthy. Well, if you’re not riding your bike right along the riverfront trail, then things get a little hairy. I followed a sign that pointed for bikes to go back downtown and it took us on this underground road that went by a bunch of parked buses and areas where there was really no curb. It was kind of dangerous really. Then once you’re downtown, there’s just tons of people everywhere. We did eventually find somewhere to eat, but we wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to get there on bikes. At this point we were in a pretty big hurry because we would only have a little over an hour to spend at the museum. It may have been an hour and a half. Anyway, we cruised on over. I have to say I probably got more exercise in these three days than I have on any other vacation we’ve ever been on.
We finally made it to the Field Museum. Isn’t it ironic that the museum had the exact same sandwich shop that we wanted to go to? We could have saved ourselves a ton of time had we known this. I didn’t want to eat at the Museum because they are usually really expensive, but the food is cheap and gross. Oh well.
Right when you walk in is the T-Rex that they are most famous for, named Sue. It is named after the archeologist (or paleontologist?) who discovered it. They do not know if it is male or female.
We spent a lot of time looking at stuffed animals:
Komodo dragon
Giant Frog
Lions of Tsavo. There is a movie made about this story called The Night and the Darkness (I think?). Basically they were man-eating lions that killed a lot of people. I had never heard of it before, but Val Kilmer is in it. These are the actual furs of the lions, but they were originally made into rugs for the King, so now they are smaller than actual size.
Sue’s actual head. The one on the rest of the skeleton is just a recreation. This original skeleton weighs 600 pounds and was too heavy.
More dinosaurs
This huge wolf spider was part of the Underground exhibit.
We also saw an Egyptian exhibit. We skipped alot because we just didn’t have any more time. This kind of museum isn’t our favorite anyways.
When we got back out to our bikes, it had rained (and was still raining a bit), so we had to dry the seats off as best we could and hurry back for our River Cruise.
It made me a little nervous that David was trying to take pictures of me riding a bike while he was also riding a bike. Thankfully, he didn’t crash or drop the camera.
Unfortunately it rained the whole time we were on the River Architecture Cruise (along the Chicago River), and pretty much the rest of our vacation. You could sit on the bottom deck of the boat, and try and look out through plastic windows and not really see what the guide was talking about, or you could go to the top and get wet, but at least know what was going on. We bought ponchos and did a little of both. The tour was really interesting, but I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t raining. It was nice because we learned about different architecture than we learned about on the Segway tour in the morning. We have lots of pictures of different buildings, but again, once you get home and look at them, you don’t remember a whole lot.
Willis Tower is the black one in the middle
This one was an opera house supposedly built for the architect’s girlfriend who loved opera but wasn’t good enough to get into the other operas. Apparently he was married, and something bad happened to the building or to him (I can’t remember)…karma type thing. You can’t really tell from the picture, but it was built to look like a chair.
This is one of those buildings I was talking about earlier that was built in the airspace over the trains.
This one is just classy looking. 
This one was built during Prohibition and is meant to look like a bottle of champagne.
I don’t remember what this building is, but it’s pretty.
The blue one is the Trump Tower and it is the 2nd tallest building in Chicago.
The one in the back is supposed to look like water cascading down.
Skyline
Don’t remember what this one was either.
Well, we were a little cold and kinda wet by the time this was through, but we wanted to spend a little time at Navy Pier. We walked up and down the pier, bought a few souvenirs, and I just kept hoping that it would stop raining enough for us to ride the Ferris Wheel, but it did not. David couldn’t understand why I was so bummed, but I was. How often do you get to go on a Ferris Wheel, let alone one with such an awesome view?
We took the bus back downtown and walked to the next pizza place on our list: Gino’s East. This was a little more upscale than Lou Malnati’s (and more expensive). The service was not as good, and we waited a lot longer for our pizza. Other people that got there after us got their pizza’s first, which always bugs. Both pizza’s were good. I liked the crust at Lou’s better, but the cheese was better at Gino’s. David liked Gino’s sauce better, but I thought they put too much on. Hard to say which was better, but for overall experience, I would go back to Lou’s first.
From there we walked back to our hotel and called it a night.
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