After the late night yesterday both Dad and I were crawling a little. We got up in time to say goodbye to the Martinats before they left for a wedding, then we gathered ourselves to go back into Chi-town. I've heard over and over that the Architectural Tour is well worth it so we gave it a shot. There are a number of tour lines but we opted for Chicago Line tours and the tour was fantastic. We rode up and down the north and south forks of the Chicago River, as well as the main section that empties to the lake. I'm used to seeing the skyscrapers of San Francisco, but the Chicago downtown makes SF look like a toddler. The boat passed by high rise after high rise, as well as shorter but larger footprint buildings, as we were informed about the architectural as well as general history of Chicago. To hear about the Great Fire of 1871 and the pollution of the river and how these and many other factors have shaped the architecture was fascinating. We left with a much greater appreciation for this great city where the skyscraper was born.
We wandered down Navy Pier which reminded me a lot of SF's Pier 39. There were similar vendors and restaurants and altogether not that interesting. Next stop was Millennium Park where we watched kids splashing around in the fountain, had some fun taking distorted pictures of ourselves in The Bean (a giant reflective metal bean shaped sculpture), and enjoyed a free concert put on my the symphony and choir.
A quick stop for some Thai and Filipino food and we were ready for some music. Buddy Guy's Legends club was at the top of the list so we grabbed a beer and enjoyed the opener. The place was a lot classier than last night's club but still good music so none of the rest mattered. The headliner was John Primer who is a bit of a legend himself, having played with many other greats including Muddy Waters. After a bit Buddy himself came up on stage, had a shot, and did some chatting singing to John Primer's background tunes. He knows how to please the crowd and had us all laughing with his banter and lyrics.
Dad and I eventually left, got some ice cream, and finally made it back home around 1:30 am. The deal was that the dog sitter was going to leave the key outside for us but when we got there there was none to be found. We thought about calling our hosts but it was pretty late at this point. After searching around we found an open window, popped out the screen, and I was happy to set a foot inside and not hear an alarm. It was a long and fantastic day and ended up with a bit of adventure for ourselves before getting to bed around 3am.
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