Chicago!

I hated to bother Zach the morning of my flight (he worked a really late night the night before, got off at like 1am), but I needed to catch a ride to the airport at 4:30am. My flight was leaving at 6am and I was panicked the entire way to the gate. I was praying I wasn't late ... you know me such a planner and has to be early for everything, but I did make it on time. Just as they began lining up the A group. Yes! I flew from Denver into Chicago Midway where Jake's amazing girlfriend, Kayla, picked me up! Here's what Kayla had in store for me...

Kayla and I on the 'Loop'... the train that leads us into the downtown area :)

First stop on my Kaylala Tour is Millennium Park! Check out how pretty it is! Not to mention the awesome building. It's sloped like that to preserve the view for the building to the left of it and the glass of the slant is headed that way during winter, the snow slides right off.

Walking deeper into the park when we heard some music. It's an outdoor amphitheater where an orchestra was practicing for their concert that evening. No we didn't stay, but I was quite impressed with it. It's huge!

AHH! The first site of the 'Bean.' Beware... lots of photos of this art piece to come hahah

Lots of reflections... which I believe is what Kayla said part of the artists concept was.... To see the reflections of the city and it's people. Pretty neat.

Kayla and I standing in front of the Bean.

Going underneath the Bean.

Me and Kayla <3

Got some crazy images from under the bean.

Check out that Skyline.

Moving away from the Bean to these other cool things. These fountains are a really cool because they have pictures of Chicagoan faces that move. Yes, they move. Oh and... they spit, spit water! hahaha They also blink, smile, and watch out because when their face makes a O... they spit water. It's a great idea. The kids loved it haha 

First site of the Donald Trump Tower. Pretty snazzy!

The boat houses have really detailed artwork. This city is so amazing and how diversified their architecture is. Truly amazing.

By the fountain still... and waiting for Ryan to confirm our lunch spot.

Not long after walking around we were already hungry so we decided to eat on the River walk. A place that has shops and restaurants all along the river. We heard from Kayla's brother about this little burger joint. We finally found it! Thanks Ryan for the great lunch spot!!

Waiting for our Turkey Burgers. Seriously, one of the best burgers I've had. SO GOOD!

A fountain near our table. It also has a 'blowhole' of sorts just behind where I was standing. Every hour on the hour, water is shot out of the hole that arches over the river and touches the other side. The reasoning for this was that the architect wanted to show the city that you could be under the water and on the water at the same time, however he didn't realized that what goes up... must come down. So, if a boat does pass under it, everyone and everything gets drenched. Therefore, you can now witness the boats stopping just before the hour so that all will remain dry! Hahah We didn't see any boats stop, but we did see the water spitting across the river.

The lovely, Kayla.

Our table on the River walk.

View from the River walk of the city... See the Trump tower?

Headed back up the River walk and found a GIANT Marilyn! How awesome lol We're not sure what the big deal was, but it was cool anyway.

After lunch we headed back towards the Trump tower to enjoy ... 

a ride on the River. Stop #2 on our journey. Time to go on a Wendella boat ride! Great idea Kayla!! What a blast.

On the boat... Lots and lots of architecture!

Merchant Mart... I think they said that this is a building comprised of many companies. Somewhat of a showroom? Not too sure, but it was big!

The 1970's architecture. The top half of these are pie shaped apartments (how weird is that... but kinda cool) and the bottom half is a parking garage.

Chicago SunTimes and down the 'Y' of the River.

Boeing building and the awesome Riverfront buildings. I hope I have this right, but if not... I'm sticking to it. Sounds good to me. The building that back up to the river have two addresses. One for the riverfront and one with a street access. I suppose back when... the only had use for the river, but nowadays they can't get mail without a street address. (I think she also mentioned that).

Sitting on the boat looking up at the Sears (now known as the Willis) Tower. The left image is the full view of what it was like, but the right is the zoomed in view of the 3" plexiglass boxes that allow you to look down to the streets below.

Back to our riverboat.... The Opera building was constructed during the industrial revolution for some rich man's lover/mistress?, but before it was ever used... the stock market crashed along with the economy. It was long before it was ever used.

Cool brick building. Love the vines.

Another pie shaped building. The front is glass to mirror the river and rounded to follow the curve of the river, but the back side of the building comes to a 90 degree angle creating the pie shape. So pretty with all the reflections. I mean seriously... have you seen enough architectural difference yet?! Still more to come. This city is crazy.

Back up the river to were we started...

This is a full view of the boat house, however each one of these is different too. They said they wanted architectural variation, well Chicago... you have it.

The left building is the United building, but I can't remember what the right one is. All I do know, is that I love them.

There was something significant with this building like there was a battle or something, but I truly can't remember. Sad.

Was one of the first skyscrapers and is now attached to Hotel 71. Yes, connected... weird lol

The 3rd pie shaped building... this is the Swiss Hotel and the right building is the first building in Chicago to have a female architecture! WHOA. 

Right past all the buildings, past our stop, past our lunch table, and on wards down the river to Lake Michigan.

Into the holding cell, waiting for the gates to close so that the water can rise and we can go out onto Lake Michigan.

Waiting for the water to rise...

Funny story about this building... It's past the LSD (Lakeside Dr) road where there is NOT one single building, but this one. The reasoning... during the great Chicago fire and the river being so filthy and what not, the area past the LSD was used as a landfill. There were regulations not to build on land past the LSD, but these sneaky people said it's not a land, it's a landfill. Therefore their building went up, but regulations had to be changed. It then said that there were no buildings to be build on land or landfill past the LSD. Hahaha. Also, the little circle up on top is a fancy little restaurant.

A view of Navy Pier and Chicago Skyline from Lake Michigan!!!

Zoomed in the famous fountain... Buckingham Fountain. We thought it was further away from our first stop, but it was only about 2 blocks. It's ok though. We got to see if from the boat and from Sears tower. Pretty great. 

You can see an airplane flying into O'Hare Airport and The tall building in the bottom photo is the John Hancock Center. I believe it is home to retail stores, restaurants, offices, and condos. What a mix!

Top photo shows the Sears Tower. and the bottom shows Millennium park where we started our tour. That's the skyline from Lake Michigan!

Heading back into the holding cell... Checking out the Farris wheel at Navy Pier.

Waiting for the water to go down. We went up about a foot and a half  in about 5 minutes... so just have to wait for the water to go back down.

Heading back down the river... Almost the end of our ride. This building is where the Wrigley name all started. They started out as a business selling soap. Or should I say trying to sell. It wasn't selling... so, they decided to attach a piece of gum to the soap to help it sell better and well it did. They soon realized that people still weren't interested in the soap and bought it for the gum then through the soap away. It finally hit Mr. Wrigley that people wanted the gum so that's what he sold. Lucky him.

NBC building.

Chicago Times building.

Under our last bridge back to where we started... time for our 3rd tourist stop! Yay!

3rd stop on our adventures. Sears tower... aka Willis Tower. The tower was renamed all because the Willis Company bought in to the Sears tower at what I believe was 3% and was given naming rights. So, the changed the name. Boo.

Yup, that's us <3

Whoa. We're about to go up to the Skydeck of the Sears Tower. This is going to be great!

Yup, we're going to be WAAAAAAAY up there.

OW! Check out that view!! On a clear day like today... you can see 50 miles out. That's into 4 states!

Speaking of which... if you click to enlarge (I hope it still works like that), you can see Lake Michigan to the left side of the frame and just across the lake is what? MICHIGAN! Whoa.

The views are incredible. In the bottom image, you can see a park that's pretty centrally located... that's the park where we started our day!

So breathtaking! Wish we could have had more time in this city to explore more of it and to stay longer at some of the ones we went to. I look forward to going back soon! Such a cool place.

Here's were it gets really cool. They have what's called the Skydeck Ledge. It's 103 floors over the city streets below (which by the way is 1,353 ft below your feet at this moment). It was a bit scary while you stepped your first foot out onto this 3" plexy box, but it really was amazing.

Me and Kayla inside the Skydeck Ledge! We're currently standing 1,353 ft above the city streets.

What a neat experience. It's not every day you're standing 103 stories above the ground and are able to see it right below your feet. It's totally different looking out and over the edge, but to stare straight down...

That was our final stop in Kayla's book, but little did she know that I was getting one more special treat. I've never really been on a Train. I've been on the Amtrack, but it's not the city trains. You know... Like in Phelem 123 or that one with Jake G. where he has 8 minutes or something to save the train and it's passengers. Well, it was cool. A long and somewhat slow right, but we didn't mind. We were exhausted walking the city. I didn't get any really good photos from the train ride. Apparently the conductors get strict with cameras ever since the 9/11 and other attacks. Sad. I would have loved to capture more of that moment.

Ryan (Kayla's brother) picked us up at the train station (after an hour-ish ride). He then drove us about another half hour to their beautiful home. We did get quite a few laughs out of this guy in front of us. He's about 60 ... on this ancient looking scooter... in a suit... Bahaha

Good morning. It's roughly around 6 am. We've just began our journey to Minnesota!

Kendra (Kayla's sister) is sound asleep while the rest of us are enjoying the surroundings and attempting to facebook/text those awake while listening to the radio and trying to stay awake.

Kendra had the most interesting sleeping positions. This wasn't even the best one. I seriously don't know how she can do it... I'd never get out of there! How can that even be comfortable?!

While in the car ride, the girls were surprised to see my fish tail braid (which I've also just learned to do myself). My mom used to do my hair like that ALL the time, but I haven't thought about it in years. A month or so again, I was reminded of it and knew that I had to learn. So I did. Well, I also taught these lovely girls and we had a whole hair braiding party.

We're getting closer!

Crossing the Hudson river!!

And ... welcome to Minnesota!

© Jessi Dalton Photography | All Rights Reserved

Yahoo! Chicago has been posted and you'll be heading to St. Paul, Minnesota with me next! I hope you enjoyed the Chicago photos. I know that I have. I can't wait to go back!! Thank you Kayla and the rest of the Nowaks for such a wonderful time! Thanks Mom and Dad for the camera (it did such a fabulous job on this trip. I didn't take my big camera and felt so naked, but this camera rocked! Fits in your pocket and has great quality!) And thanks to all of you for your patience through this long blog. Love you all. I hope you're all having a great start to the week!

xoxo