Once again we began the morning with breakfast aboard Lucky Us. Since the weather was near perfect, we decided to start the day with a cruise on the Chicago River. "Life jackets on?" Check, and then it was off to the mouth of the river where we go through a lock to enter the Chicago River. The river used to flow into Lake Michigan, but many years ago the flow on the river was reversed to send all of the sewage down the Chicago River and into the Illinois River. The lock now prevents Lake Michigan from draining out Through the Chicago River. It probably sounded like a good idea back then to keep Lake Michigan "clean" by sending the sewage elsewhere, but now environmentalist must cringe at the idea...
After breakfast, the first order of business was to try on life vests, Katie was already excited!
After having traverse something close to 100 locks, this one was easy since it only goes up/down about 2 feet so there is very little turbulence as large volumes of water flow into/out of the lock. Also, it was easier with two people (the Admiral and Bob) on the main deck to grab the holding lines on the side of the lock. During the locking process, Jill, the Grandkids and I were having a great view from the flybridge. Almost immediately, we started going under the famous bridges of downtown Chicago (see an example at right).We only went a couple of miles along the river, but in that distance we passed under 17 bridges each way.
Personally, going through downtown Chicago and under these bridges is one of the
BIG highlights of the Great Loop! I have been over some of the bridges during previous visits to Chicago, but I have seen pictures of these bridges "thousands" of times in movies, on TV and in pictures. So, for me the thrill of actually going along the river right through the heart of downtown Chicago was a huge event. Grandson Will is crazy about trains, and he was really excited when we saw a commuter train go over the top level of a double deck bridge similar to the one at the left. All of the bridges are in operating condition, but it takes 24 hours notice (and a good reason) to get any of them to open.
In order to get under the closed bridges, we had lowered the radar mast before we left the dock this morning. With the radar mast down our vertical height is about 16 feet so we made it under the bridges with from 1 to 3 feet to spare. Our trip began about 9:30 am on a Sunday morning so there was no commercial (i.e. building construction of bridge repair) traffic and not a lot of tour boats or pleasure craft yet. There are even tour boats that specialize in architectural tours of the river. However, I am afraid that I cannot give you much information about the buildings, except to say that everywhere you look the views are great.
I could recognize some of the classics like the Wrigley Building, the Merchandise Mart and Marina Towers. The twin Marina Towers were one of the architectural marvels when they opened in 1964. Not long after they opened, I visited an old high school friend who was studying architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He took me around to see some of the incredible buildings in downtown Chicago, including the Marina Towers, which had just opened. In the picture at the left you can see one tower and a bit of the other on the left. One of their highlights is an actual marina under one (?) of the towers.
After we got back to the dock, we had lunch on board Lucky Us. Then we were off to the Field Museum of Natural History, which is on the waterfront about 2 miles south of our marina. The Admiral, Jill and the kids walked there along the waterfront. Bob and I rode the electric assisted bicycles in order to rest our sore feet/ankles. Along the way we passed Grant Park and its beautiful fountain. The Field Museum is in a beautiful waterfront setting along with the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. The museum is excellent, but I am afraid that it was not terribly popular with the Grandkids. However, there was considerable interest in the two life size mammoths in the main hall (picture at right with the Admiral, Katie and Sarah.
The main hall also contains a nearly complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is impressively big. Kids and dinosaurs just seem to go together (?). The picture at the left shows Bob and the Grandkids in front of the T-Rex. Given the camera angle and the fore shortening of the view, the photo really does not begin to show the huge size of the T-Rex.
After the museum Terry and I headed back to Lucky Us on the bikes while the family went back to their hotel with a quick tour of the Chicago theater district along the way. We met up in the hotel lobby about 5:30 pm to go to dinner at a restaurant around the corner from the hotel. By the time that dinner was over, it was a very tired group that said good night in the hotel lobby. I suspect that everyone slept very well! I know that I did.
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