We got up and headed to the bus station for the over an hour ride to Chicago. We went to our hotel which was located in the center of the city. Our room wasn’t ready so we checked our luggage and headed out sightseeing. We bought 2 day tickets for the hop-on hop-off bus.

We went first to the Adler Planetarium. It is a great place but time is always short when there is so much to see. There is a great view of the Chicago skyline from the front of the planetarium.

Adler Planetarium

Next we went to the park that contains many landmarks. First was the Bean a large reflective metal structure where you can take pictures being reflected by the Bean.

The above picture is the center of the Bean and below are pictures taken of the reflections in the Bean.

Then Marsha and I walked to Buckingham Fountain with beautiful sights along the wa.

Below are pictures of Buckingham Fountain. It also goes a water show for 20 minutes and is lit with a rainbow of colors at night.

We boarded the bus and went to a different section of the city. The streets have various forms of artwork that is really neat. Below is a pic of one.

Of course we drove by Soldier Field.

And of course the day would not be complete without pictures of Chicago at night.

Then back to the hotel so we can do more touristing tomorrow.

Today we went to visit Marsha’s brother, Wally, and sister-in-law EJ. They have the most beautiful garden in their backyard and they raise butterflies. Wally is a docent for a nearby Conservatory. Wally and EJ took us to the Conservatory where Wally gave us his tour. The tour was extremely interesting and Wally does a great job as docent. The Conservatory has a Corpse Flower (titan arum plant) that smells like rotting flesh and burnt sugar when it opens.

From the Conservatory we went to a Japanese garden where we had lunch. After lunch we toured the extremely beautiful gardens.

We had to leave the gardens because we were invited to Wally and EJ’s neighbor for happy hour. Again it would have been nice to spend more time at both locations but we couldn’t.

Wally’s neighbor has a bar in his basement.

He is very much into craft beer and has 8 or 9 on tap that he goes to Chicago to get. We had a really fun time. After happy hour we went back to Wally and EJ’s for dinner.

I should mention EJ is very much into fiber arts. She spins her own yarn. Of course we have much in common and we went off to the yarn store that EJ frequents. Great store and of course I got more yarn.

But I digressed. After dinner we returned to the hotel since we will go to Chicago in the morning.