FIFTY STATES AWAYAfter a hectic day yesterday we were excited to wake up just outside the great city of Chicago, and pleased to be staying in the same accommodation for two nights. Today’s plans involved a boat tour around the city, something a little unusual and different from your average city bus tour!
Making our way into the city the traffic was rather manic, worse than expected, especially as we’d checked the reports. It also turned out to be quite a squeeze and most people here don’t own a truck so we stood out like a sore thumb! As we got closer the huge buildings towered all around us and a classic red Chicago theatre sign hung centering the city. We were due to park in the nearby Trump parking garage which seemingly had quite a challenge in store for us. Rounding the corner of the car park there turned out to be a particularly hideous turn up to the next level, that we honestly didn’t think we’d be able to make. We both held our breath and somehow Ben made it up in one nice smooth turn!
With the traffic being quite a lot heavier than expected we realised we had likely missed our boat and were feeling a little panicked that we wouldn’t be able to reschedule. After finding the place we needed to be it was clear that our tour had already left. After a quick chat with the ticket office, we were extremely relieved to find out that we were able to reschedule to the next tour, which left only 30 minutes later. We took this time to find some food to snack on.
It’s turned out to be particularly foggy in Chicago today, which although it does obscure some of the views it does add just a little magic to it. We were now ready to board the boat, so off we went! Its a weird thing to be smack bang in the middle of the city on a boat, the buildings towered around us as we headed along the city river bank out towards what’s know as ‘the lock’.
The lock is a little gated bit of river that all vessels must pass into before heading out to Lake Michigan. The purpose of this is to stop too much of the lake flowing back into the city streams so only one of the gates opens at a time. Once in the lock the water from the Lake rushes in, which incredibly made the boat rise a good 4ft, a little show of the tremendous power of the surrounding waters. We headed out on Lake Michigan but the fog was so thick that you could barely see your hand infront of your face. This was disappointing as we’d been hoping to see the fantastic Lake and take in the skyline of Chicago. The captain decided at this point that it was too dangerous to go much further, we saw what we could and turned around, going back through the lock procedure again and heading back into the inner city streams.
From here we travelled up and down as much of the river as possible, learning a lot about the architecture and history of the buildings. As we didn’t get to sail along much of the mighty Lake Michigan we were taken down into the Chinatown area of the city, which had some interesting bridges, along the way we passed a train carriage yard, where they were housing an old pullman carriage.
It was a great day, and on our way to the car we even saw a Mclaren! It was now time to head back to our home for the night, but not before stopping to have an exceedingly nice dinner date! With full bellies it was time to wind down for the evening, goodnight Chicago.
