Sunday- 11/3- Today we finally had to say goodbye to Daddy as we dropped him off at the St. Louis airport. We had about an hour to kill somewhere along our drive to Chicago when we saw National Park signs for Lincoln’s home in Springfield, IL. Always suckers for more stamps and more history learning, we took the exit. Unfortunately, we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked here, but we did get to go on a tour of Lincoln's home and learned some really neat things about the 16th president. We arrived fairly smoothly into Chicago and just in time for our show at the Chicago Magic Lounge. On Sunday afternoons they have a family performance and it did not disappoint. The kids thought it should be called a magic and comedy show. The coolest part was you had to enter through two different entrances. One was like a laundromat and the other a hidden passage way in a library. We also got settled into our last minute air bnb after our original one had a broken furnace. Disaster averted in that we found another space that works just fine for us:)
Monday- 11/4- we had a much needed slow start today and because of yesterday’s time change it felt like a later start than it really was. We drove to downtown, parked at Millenium Park and walked to the Willis Tower. They have a glass box overlook that is pretty impressive given how far up it was. This was a really neat comparison for the kids about relative height and sense of space. They were all completely sure that the St. Louis gateway arch was way taller than the Willis tower. There are no structures around the arch, but there are many other tall buildings around the tower. In fact 5 of the tallest buildings in the US are in the Chicago skyline. Everyone was brave and at the end even Noah stepped out onto the platform. We were only allowed 90 seconds on the ledge for photos so not a lot of time, but we made it count. After the tower experience we walked a few miles through the city to Pizzeria Due for some authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. The kids were a little put out that I only ordered one large pizza (usually we order two). In the end, besides Ben, everyone only had 1.5 pieces of pizza and no one wanted dinner tonight. They really enjoyed this style of pizza more than I thought. We walked back towards millenium park via the “miracle mile” shopping district where the kids spied a Nutella cafe. They wanted a picture of it, but no one wanted to go in because they were too full! I couldn’t believe it! We finished the day checking out and taking touristy photos at Cloud Gate and playing at the huge playground in Maggie Daley Park.
