2009-02 Chicago

We headed off to the Windy City for two college visits for Mariah, one at Loyola and the other at St. Xavier. Mariah brought along Hannah, who has also been looking at a school in Chicago. We left late Thursday afternoon and drove pretty much straight through and arrived around midnight.

On Friday, we got up and headed to Loyola. It is on the north side of Chicago and sits on the Lake Michigan waterfront. Lake Shore Drive cuts right through the campus, so there tends to be a lot of traffic to contend with as you make your way around. The campus covers about a 8 by 6 block area, and has the feel of being plucked into the middle of an old neighborhood. The newest building is a learning center filled with the latest technology for studying both alone and as small groups. It was a very popular location on campus for people to congregate. After our tour, we walked around a little more and headed to the bookstore, which seems like it is off campus as it is located in with several other commercial establishments.

Our next stop was at St. Xavier, located southwest of downtown Chicago. It is located out at the outer edge of Chicago proper, and also feels like it is in a neighborhood, but one that grew up around it rather than with it. St Xavier is much smaller than we expected as they have one main classroom building with multiple wings. It has mainly been a commuter school, and the oldest dorms are only about 8 years old. The campus has a lot of open area with a lot of the activities buildings spread out.

For the evening we headed into the downtown area and ate at the Hard Rock Café. Although it took a little time to get seated there was a whole unused upstairs area, apparently waiting for a large group to show up. After dinner, we went across the street to a huge 2 story McDonalds with a pair of escalators in the middle to get between floors. There was also a history wall about McDonalds, and it included a lot of toys and items that LeAnn and I remembered from our childhood in each displays of products from each decade.

On Saturday, we headed down to the waterfront area. Our first stop was Millennium Park, located in Grant Park, which stretches between the edge of downtown and the waterfront for a couple of miles. Millennium Park has and outdoor concert area, an ice skating area (which was very busy) and a sculpture called the Cloud Gate, also know as the bean. It is a highly reflective silver, kidney bean shaped object. Everyone enjoyed taking their pictures in and around it, and getting different aspects of the skyline in the photos.

From there we walked to Navy Pier, about 1.5 miles away. The weather was a little cool and the wind was blowing into our face on the walk over there. Navy Pier is a shopping and amusement area built on a pier out into Lake Michigan. There are outdoor activities for the summer time, but those were shut down for the winter, however, the Ferris wheel was still running. There is an exhibition of numerous stained glass windows that line the walkway towards the end of the pier. In the auditorium, there was cheerleading competition going on, so the hallways were filled with cheerleaders and their families and supporters. On the way back, Ray stopped to unload some of his issues with Bob Newhart. One of his issues is how embarrassed his kids get when he acts goofy--like talking to a statue.

Walking back to Grant Park was more comfortable since the wind was now at our back. We walked across a serpentine shaped bridge to cross Lake Shore Drive and continued on towards the Spirit of Music Gardens area of Grant Park to see the snow sculptures created for Chicago’s Snow Days. There were over 20 snow sculptures, all made with great details and representing real and fictional characters and scenes. The weather was cold enough that they were still preserved very close to their original state even though they were a couple of days old. A quick stop at Starbucks to warm up, and it was time to head back to the parking ramp and return to MN after a fun but quick trip to Chicago. With a lot of walking while we were here, there was a good amount of napping on the ride home.