Sunday 27th August 2000

Chicago

We both woke very early and tossed and turned in the bed (which was enormous) for a while and then decided to get up, don’t know what time it was as the time difference really messes with your body clock and we were both a bit jet lagged.

Met Ken and Bev for breakfast at arranged time of 9.00am and visited the breakfast room on the hotel complex. Breakfast was excellent and the service was first class. We discussed what and where to visit during our short stay bearing in mind that we would need to save some time to meet up with Lulu, (this was a lady that Ken had meet over the internet while researching our trip and they had arranged to meet up so that Lulu could show us the sites). Lulu is an expert on the Route so we could also pick her brains.

We took a short walk to downtown Chicago and visited the Information Centre as all good tourists should which was housed in the famous Water Tower. We started our day with a short Trolley bus tour around Chicago with our driver named Elvis, lovely character.

We passed many sights and buildings such as the Wrigley Building and then Sears Tower, all of them seem to have a story to tell and Elvis told us a few. When we arrived at Navy Pier we decided to stop for lunch in the Beer Garden and the weather got hotter and hotter, we were on holiday at last. Navy Pier is an old pier that has been turned into a tourist attraction with all kinds of entertainments, sideshows, shops and kiosks. There are many bars and restaurants and even a cruise liner moored their today.

After lunch we jumped back on the Trolley bus and after more sightseeing and stores we arrived at the Chicago River where we took a Boat trip along the river, just as Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney did in the film ’My Best Friends Wedding’. We cruised down the river for a while and went through a rather large lock and out into Lake Michigan, it is so big (307 x 118 miles across) that it is more like being on the sea than a lake you can’t even see the other side. An hour and a half later we were back where we started. We took a stroll around a few shops and then headed back to the Hotel for a rest, wash and brush up before heading out to dinner.

We had planned earlier in the day to eat at Famous Dave’s for dinner, it looked a great place and we were not disappointed, excellent dinner and blues venue. The Ribs weren’t as good as we thought they would be, but the music more than made up for it, even Ken enjoyed it, not that he would ever admit it, but Robert enjoyed it the most, it was his sort of place for entertainment. He had such a good time that when we left the restaurant he kissed Ken on the head by way of a Thank You.

We walk back to the hotel about a ten minute walk away and were asleep before our heads hit the pillow, feet aching from all the walking, but a great start to our Trip of a lifetime, our Millennium project now in reality, along Route 66 ‘The mother Road’.