As we continued on to Ohio, we left Bismarck and drove through Minnesota and landed in Eau Claire for the 3rd night. The next morning I woke up, which was Benjamin's actual birthday, and had a very low tire. I found a tire shop and learned I had picked up a big screw. It was obviously shortly before we stopped and the tire lost air all night. They patched it up and 45 minutes later we were leaving Eau Claire, with Chicago in our sights.
The boys and I have never really experienced a big city, other than a few hours in downtown Dallas and then the occasional driving through a metropolis. I have always wanted to see if I could score a swanky hotel room for (price of regular room) cheap online, and Chicago was the place.
I was a little unnerved when we hit the city. The traffic was bad. We had traveled like 9 miles in 35 minutes. I had done some research on parking downtown. Our hotel had a lot, but we had also planned our trip so that the next morning we had an appointment at the United Headquarters. This building was about 6 blocks from our hotel, so decided to park closer to the United building, which happened to be the Sears Tower/Willis Tower. Thankful I did not reserve a parking spot online because it never occurred to me that our van would be too tall for a parking garage with our cargo carrier. We ended up driving down Wells Ave, which is the street that runs under the El train. So, not only was I overwhelmed, I was trying to avoid these steel beams, all the people and cars, as well as looking for parking garages. Since it was mid afternoon, there were lots of shadows being cast. I struggle with seeing everything when moving from sun to shadow.
After we parked and grabbed what we needed for the night, we set off to find our hotel. We had the GPS on my phone, but I felt so turned around. The GPS was slow in orienting us and we were not real sure where we were headed. It was about 4:30 so the after work rush was just starting. The boys were amazed at all the people, hustling and bustling. Everything from business suits to athletic wear. We finally found the Westin, which was right on the river. I was hoping for a high floor room, but we were on the 4th floor. At least we overlooked the river.
The boys were impressed with the doorman and the amazingly beautiful lobby. We unloaded our stuff and set out to find Millenium Park, at recommendation of someone at the hotel lobby.
We found the Bean, which is made of 168 highly polished stainless steel plates, giving the appearance of liquid mercury. Love the reflections.
This picture was taken underneath it, where you can walk under.
I figured it was a matter of time before one of the rickshaw drivers found us. We splurged for a short little trip.
There is a huge outdoor area where they show movies and I would guess have concerts.
Right in the middle of downtown is this fun park with really cool slides.
I really wanted to take the train or subway, but never could make sense of the schedules I had found.
The next morning Uncle Mike set up a tour of United Airlines for us. It covers about 20 floors and we saw the guts of the operation. Below is a map of real time flights. We also saw the room, through frosted glass, of all the top secret flights that they coordinate (for the heavy hitters..ie First Lady, top military officials). Benjamin loved talking planes with our tour guide. They have staff meetings every morning to discuss any flights and crews that are not where they are suppose to be (because of weather, mechanical issues, illness from flight crew, etc). They have their own weather desk and air traffic control desk to consulate. They explained to us about their Singapore flight. If I recall all the details correctly, pilots can only be in the air for 16 hours and of that time, only flying for 8 hours. Singapore is close to a 16 hour flight, so if the plane is loaded and they are 3 minutes late fueling, the flight can be cancelled, which will cost United about $5 million. So, the timing of all things are very critical on the long flights.
This was the view from the 27th floor of the tower.
I got this picture at lunch time when we ate at Gardano's pizza..unfortunately we did not have time to wait for the famous deep dish, but what we had was really good. I could not determine what made it so good or different than what we were use to though.
On Wednesday the 29th we headed from Chicago to Cleveland. We had spent 4 nights on the road and went from sleeping in the van, to Motel 6 to downtown Chicago.
I think we unanimously decided that swanky hotels are nice but we prefer non-swanky. The Westin was far from the car and we had to pay for wi-fi. The boys were very tempted by the food 'cart' in the room, where a Snickers was $6. In cheaper hotels we can normally crank the a/c down lower, they usually have at least a continental breakfast. I did enjoy the nice towels and considered room service, since my boys would have thought that was really cool.
My take-away from Chicago
Toll roads: $38 (including Illinois, Indiana and Ohio roads - one way)
Lunch: $40
Dinner: $28
Parking: $42
Downtown hotel room:$130
2 of my boys realizing they don't want to live anywhere close to a big city: priceless
We arrived in Cleveland Wed night and Benjamin was very excited to go back to back with Granny.
Thursday morning, we woke up to a totally flat tire! I was able to use my little air compressor and air up the tire enough to drive on it.
Got it to the shop. It was the other back tire. They brought the tire out and there was a huge divet, with some of the wire exposed under the tread. They also told me that the recent patch job (in Wisconsin) was close to the side wall and they would not have patched that. They said it was holding air but recommended replace it too. So, 2 new tires! I have decided, the few times I have had car issues in all my years of traveling, there has always been a Johnston around (my sister and her family :-) )
Will post rest of Ohio pictures, minus the wedding soon! We will also be hitting the road soon to hed back!
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