Chigaco Recap

We spent four fabulous days in Chicago with Art & Sharon!

The morning they arrived we walked over to The Navy Pier from our marina, had breakfast and enjoyed "people watching"...later that day we took the Trolley Tour of the city and learned about some of the cultural, architectural and historical distinctions that make this city so special - from the John Hancock building and the famous Water Tower at the north end of Michigan Avenue to Soldier Field and the museum campus at the south end of Millennium Park. The beauty of this magnificent city is evident around every corner. On Sunday night we walked to Grant Park and got great seats and listened to Dee Alexander, amoung others, at the Chicago Jazz Festival! The timing of our visit could not have been better...imagine, here we were in Chicago, just in time for this fantastic FREE entertainment! Great weather, great music...

On Monday we took the Architecture River Cruise...the river has become the heart and soul of Chicago and seeing the city from this vantage point is something we highly recommend to anyone visiting...Some of the tour highlights included Marina City, The Merchandise Mart and the Willis Tower (formerly known as The Sears Tower). Perhaps one of the most beautiful modern buildings in the city is the newly completed Trump Tower. On Monday night we ate dinner at Gibson's, one of Chicago's famous steak houses--dark and smokey with literally 1,000's of photographs of movie stars adorning its walls, we enjoyed a terrific meal and then experienced a memorable cab ride back to the marina which we will laugh about for many years to come...

On Tuesday we made our way back up to Michigan Avenue where we had seen the beginning stages of set-up the night before for Oprah's taping of her 24th season kick-off party! We joined the nearly 250,000 other fans who were already crowding into the streets by noon for the 5 PM celebration. I made a sign which read, "Naples Florida Loves Oprah" and was stopped to be interviewed by both the local news anchor from Chicago's channel 2 news as well as a reporter for the Oprah Sirius Radio station...everyone seemed interested to learn that we had traveled all the way to Chicago by boat from Florida to see Oprah! We wanted to get as close to the stage as possible so as we tucked in behind some barricades where Telemundo TV was setting up less than 100' from the main stage and just acted like we belonged there...Chip left early and headed back to prep Ithaka for today's departure; but Art was a trouper and stayed with me and Sharon for the duration! We enjoyed live performances by James Taylor, Chris Angel and Jennifer Hudson...not to mention experiencing seeing Oprah command the enormous audience as well as witnessing the entire 5 blocks dancing to The Black Eyed Peas! Seriously, could we have planned this any better?

We packed as much into a 72 hour visit as anyone could and left early this morning to begin our adventure down the rivers...and so it only seems appropriate that I would end this post with a quote by Mark Twain: "It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago-She outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time."