Day 6- Chicago, Illinios

Some of the buildings along the boat tour

Chicago is a great city!  Unfortunately, we arrived in the middle of a heat wave and the temperatures were in the high 90s and low 100s. This required a bit of re-prioritizing because it was so miserable in the heat.  There is so much to do here that re-planning the day was not a problem!  We spent most of the morning at Navy Pier.  The buildings were all air conditioned so we wandered through the shops and would go outside for a bit to look at all of the boats and the skyline.  There is an IMAX theatre on the pier so we saw the 3D IMAX movie of Born to be Wild.  The cinematography was outstanding and Duncan left the movie saying," I really want to go to Africa someday.  I think I see myself working with wild animals." We'll see where he ends up but it was interesting that he is thinking about his future.

View of Navy Pier from our hotel

We completely lucked out with our hotel.  I used priceline.com and got a sweet deal on a four star hotel right on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Navy pier is a 10 minute walk from where we are.  We were able to drive to Chicago by 10:00 this morning and park at the hotel.  Granted the parking is on the steep side,  but we have been able to walk everywhere which has been nice.
After we checked into the hotel we went back over to the pier and took an architectural boat tour of the city. This was a 90 minute boat ride along the Chicago River.  It was a great way to see the city and it was actually a bit (and I mean bit) cooler on the water. The different style buildings that line the river are amazing.  It was so interesting to hear how devastating the Chicago fire was but how it lead to the rebuilding of the city that ended in such a dramatic skyline.

Enjoying a drink at Navy Pier

The kids are certainly getting their fair share of people watching here.  Douglas was happy to drop some change into the guitar case of a musician but was very concerned about the man we saw laying on the sidewalk trying to sleep. We went to a great restaurant for dinner called the Grande Lox.  Tonight we walked to the "Landshark Beer Garden" that is all the way at the far end of the pier.  Although the musicians never played while we were there, we enjoyed a drink while watching the boats come in and out of the marina, gazed at the beautiful lit up skyline, and people watched. We are all exhausted and arrived back at the hotel around 10:45. 
The heat is supposed to continue tomorrow and after a short discussion we have decided to keep moving along to our next destination. We were hoping to take a tour of Wrigley field and go to the Lincoln Park Zoo but neither of those would be fun in this heat.