Skip to main content

Chicago Weekend Day 1

In October, my wife and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary by spending a weekend in Chicago. Chicago is her favorite city, and I have never really been there.  (I have been in Lake Forest a few times for work but never really gotten into the city limits let alone downtown and The Loop.)

We spent close to a day and a half in Chicago before heading to South Bend for the Notre Dame / University of Pittsburgh game.  So with not as much time and wanting to see a lot what do you do?  If you are us, you want to experience and enjoy as much as you can. Well, one of the items that helped us was the Chicago City Pass - it allowed us to visit a number of attractions and at a pretty good price.  We also scheduled two unique tours, and I'll get into those later.
Though it was a dreary day, the Chicago Skyline is impressive.
The City Pass allows you to visit five Chicago attractions at a set price.  You also have nine days to use the pass.  The pass includes the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and the Chicago Skydeck.  Then you have a choice of the Adler Planetarium or the Art Institute of Chicago and another choice of the 360 Chicago Observation Deck or the Museum of Science and Industry.  The cost for the pass is $106 for an adult and $89 for children.  (When you compare to regular admission from what we saw on our visit - it is a savings.  $40 entry at Shedd, $35 at Adler, $24 - $38 at Field, $22 for the 360 Deck, the Skydeck at the former Sears Tower is $25.)

For most of the day on Friday, we visited the attractions at the Museum District Campus. Chicago's Museum Campus is home to some of the city's most well known attractions.  Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum of Natural History all are found here.  In addition, Soldier Field calls the Museum Campus home.
The John G.Shedd Aquarium
We first visited the Shedd Aquarium.  The aquarium is one of the largest in the world and is home to nearly 32,000 animals.  Opened in 1930 as a gift from John Graves Shedd, the building is also well known for its Greek style architecture.  Inside, the aquarium is home to numerous different exhibits as well as a number of interactive exhibits that allow you to get up close and personal with dolphins, beluga whales, and more.
Chicago skyscrapers as viewed along the Lakefront Trail

After our time at Shedd Aquarium, we headed along the Lakefront Trail to Navy Pier for our next activity.  The walk along the Lakefront Trail affords great views of the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan.  Although it was rather cold and damp, we still hustled over to the Navy Pier for our Signature Food Tour with Chicago Food Planet.
Would you like a slice? @ Giordano's on Navy Pier
For two hours, we tasted some of Chicago's signature tastes - A Chicago-style Hot Dog, Deep Dish Pizza at Giordano's, Garret Popcorn, Cheese Curds and local beer, and cupcakes - and learned about the history of the Navy Pier.  Maggie and I lucked out as we were the only two taking in this tour and had an excellent time with our tour guide.

Chicago Style Hot Dog
Our guide told us the story of the Chicago-style hotdog.  The hot dog contains: the hot dog, yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers and a dash of celery salt.  Hot Dogs were first served at Chicago's World's Fair / Columbian Exposition in 1893.  Our guide told us that a number of different vendors were competing with each other selling hot dogs and would continue to add toppings.  More often, many trace the creation of the Chicago-style dog to the Great Depression and the "Depression Sandwich" served at the Fluky's Stand on Maxwell Street. Either way, it is a unique Chicago treat that like deep dish pizza is world famous.
Adler Planetarium

Following our tour, we took an Uber back to the Museum Campus to visit Adler Planetarium.  Adler Planetarium, which also opened in 1930, is the oldest planetarium in the United States.  The planetarium was founded by Max Adler who had earned his fortune within the Sears & Roebuck Company.  Adler Planetarium is home to three theaters along with numerous exhibits and events.
Chicago Skyline from the Chicago 360 Observation Deck

With it getting close to 5:00, we headed to our hotel - the Claridge House which is located in the city's Gold Coast Historic District.  From the hotel, it was a quick walk to the 360 Observatory Deck at the John Hancock Building.  Located on the 94th Floor of the skyscraper - the views are amazing.  Even on a cloudy, overcast, and drizzly afternoon!


The observation deck offers views in all directions and is complete with a bar - possibly there to help you conquer your fear of heights.  A new item, that we didn't have time to try (or at least I didn't), is the Tilt attraction.  For an additional cost, $7.20, you can line yourself against windows that tilt down towards the Magnificent Mile below.

Following our trip to 360 Chicago, we hustled quickly over the Chicago River to begin our next activity.  Through Chicago Detours, we took a walking Historic Chicago Bar Tour.  This roughly two and a half hour tour features a number of well-known Chicago buildings and landmarks.  It mixes appetizers, beer and wine with stories on Chicago's history, architecture, and colorful characters. The highlight of the tour was a stop at the famous Billy Goat Tavern.

Billy Goat Tavern
Located on the lower level of Michigan Avenue, the Billy Goat Tavern is a Chicago landmark.  It is famous for two items.  First, the famed Billy Goat Curse that was known to plaque the Chicago Cubs for decades.  During the 1945 World Series with the Cubs leading the Detroit Tigers two games to one, then Tavern-owner, William Sianis, attempted to enter Wrigley Field with his goat for Game Four.  Attendants at Wrigley Field would not allow the goat in with Sianis leading to his cursing of the team.  The Cubs would not win the World Series until 2016.

The SNL Skit is memorialized outside the entrance to the tavern.
The second item that has made the Billy Goat Tavern famous is the 1978 Saturday Night Live Olympia Cafe (Cheezborger, Cheezborger) skit.  The skit where John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, and Billy Murray famously say, "Cheezborger, Cheezeborger, Cheezeborger, No Pepsi...Coke." is based off of the Billy Goat. Belushi and Murray were patrons of the tavern during their Second City days as was Don Novello, who wrote the skit.
Cheezborger and Beer (No Pepsi or Coke)
We concluded our tour at Michael Jordan's Steakhouse for appetizers and drinks before our group headed off to our destinations that evening.  My wife and I headed back to our hotel for dinner. With one whirlwind day touring the city behind us.  We still had a few more items to checkout the next day!  And the weather was a lot better!

All photos taken by post author, October 12, 2018.  For the full flickr set head here.

Site Navigation:


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...