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Monday, September 10, 2007

Chicago- part 1

I finally have some time to update the blog and share photos from our Chicago trip!!
We left for Chicago last Sunday morning...bright and early!! We had decided to take the Amtrak train from Bryan to Chicago...which means we had to leave home at 5:45am! YIKES! We arrived at the TINY train station (if you can call it that) in Bryan (I really should have taken a picture of it) and began to wait. After waiting, we called Amtrak and discovered that our train was running an hour and a half late!! It finally came around 8:30am, we hopped on, and off we went! The beginning of the trip was very stop and go while we waited for other trains to pass on the tracks or stopped at other stops, but eventually we got going. We arrived at Union Station in Chicago around noon and then took a cab to our hotel.

We stayed at the Wyndham Hotel, which was a block from Michigan Avenue - right in the heart of the city. We checked in and then took a bus to the Shedd Aquarium. We spent all afternoon there looking at fish and other water creatures. We even got to watch a dolphin show. After leaving the aquarium, we took a water taxi to Navy Pier. Later we walked back to our hotel and went in search of dinner. Every place was packed...so we ended up getting take out from Gino's East (Yummy deep dish Chicago pizza) and ate in our hotel room. By 10:00 we were all in bed trying to recover from our early morning start!!


The view while waiting for our train at 7:00am (down the tracks to the East)

The view down the tracks to the West ....I literally just turned around and snapped the photos above and below. Quite a difference, huh??

Getting ready to go into the aquarium (we had to wait in a long line to get in!). They had a special exhibit of lizards and komodo dragons, so they had this huge inflatable Komodo dragon that you walked through to enter the museum. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and didn't get to see the exhibit (I'm still not sure why lizards and Komodo dragons were at the aquarium though!). Jacob was really bummed we didn't get to see them.

Jacob at the aquarium - he was fascinated by all the fish and creatures!

The view of the skyline outside the aquarium



Self portrait of Jenna and I taken on the water taxi - I love the sun!
LOVE this photo - pretty impressive considering I only used my point and shoot digital camera. I left my "good" camera at home this time!








2 comments:

A Fresh Wind Children's Ministry said...

How fun! It looks like you guys had a great time. Did you see something called "the bean"? Amber has a neat picture of it from a trip to Chicago. It looks pretty cool.

Anonymous said...

I love the photo of the train tracks dissolving into the haze!

Great family memories and great photos Amy!

Dad C.