Chicago, Illinois

Chicago McCormick Place Marshalling Yard

If you don’t mind boon docking (camping without hook-ups), this is a great place to park your RV on a visit to Chicago. It’s a marshalling yard where trucks stay after unloading trade-show exhibit payloads at the convention center. The place is huge, holds approximately 500 large vehicles. We were warned that it might be noisy so we might want to park away from the trucks.  Wells it turns out that our fellow RV'ers were the noisy ones.

Just 4 miles from downtown. We were able to ride our bikes into town along the Lake Shore Trail

Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park

Scrape Metal from the World Trade Center

Navy Pier
Celebrating it's 100th birthday this year

With deep dish pizza being one of Chicago's specialty the waitress warns you as she takes your order that the pizza will take 45 minutes to cook.

The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 miles that runs through the city of Chicago. Though not especially long, the river is notable for being a reason why Chicago became an important location, with the related Chicago Portage being a link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley waterways and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

No wonder I'am so cold!

In the beginning of the season bridges are raised on certain days to allow the sail boats onto the lake

One bridge is closed before the next one is lifted

The lock was originally designed and built between 1936 and 1938. The lock was constructed as a
component of the historic engineering project that reversed the flow of the Chicago River to prevent
river water containing sewage from flowing into the lake and contaminating the city's drinking water.
Today, the Chicago River is much cleaner, but the lock continues to perform an important environmental function of separating Chicago River storm water from Lake Michigan.
The Chicago Lock is operated 24/7 due to Coast Guard Homeland Security concerns in downtown Chicago.  The lock chamber is 600 feet long x 80 feet wide x 22 feet deep. Filling/emptying is gravity-fed through partially opened lock gates, and there is typically a two to five-foot difference between Lake Michigan and Chicago River water levels. It takes about 12-15 minutes to cycle through the lock.

The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is an automated active lighthouse, and stands at the end of the northern breakwater protecting the Chicago Harbor.  The light was constructed in 1893 for the World's Columbian Exposition and moved to its present site in 1919.


Navy Pier

 View from the Sky Deck on top Sears Tower now known as Willis Tower

The Ledge - Dare to walk on air
Glass balconies put you 1,353 feet over the Windy City

50th McDonald's location

Fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen

                     
It may have been the 50th McDonald's but we choose to eat across the street

Italian Beef Sandwich, Chicago dog and Sausage sandwich

The wet Italian Beef Sandwich was our favorite of the 3

After dinner drinks at Fado's Irish Pub

an old fashioned and a strawberry mule

 Fountain of Time, or simply Time, is a sculpture measuring 126 feet 10 inches in length with its 100 figures passing before Father Time.  Situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance within Washington Park on Chicago's South Side.

Breaded Steak sandwich voted best sandwich of the World by USA Today 2015

We have to say it was pretty darn good

Since the kitchen had a problem with our pizza they gave us ice cream cones for the longer wait.
Just what we needed!

More 9-11 World Trade Center debris turned into art

Maggie Daley Park

Enchanted Forrest

Millennium Park

Art made by cutting up old tires

Cloud Gate - Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its shape. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet and weighs 110 tons.

Visitors are able to walk around and under The Bean's 12 foot high arch.

On the underside is a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections.

The sculpture is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties.

The design was inspired by liquid mercury and the surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline.

Pritzker Pavilion serves as the centerpiece for Millennium Park. Millennium Park is part of the larger Grant Park.  The construction of the pavilion created a legal controversy, given that there are historic limitations on the height of buildings in Grant Park. To avoid these legal restrictions, the city classifies the bandshell as a work of art rather than a building. The pavilion, which has a capacity of 11,000, is Grant Park's small event outdoor performing arts venue.  It includes 4,000 fixed seats and a 95,000-square-foot Great Lawn that can accommodate an additional 7,000 people.