Sonya's Blog - Day 26 - An Interesting Day

Sonya’s Blog - Day 26 - July 18 - Chicago with the Relly’s

We decided to brave Chicago today and after a lot of deliberation we decided that we would take the train. Blake had found an alternate route instead of the horrible I-90 with all it’s tolls and construction. This other route was an older highway so we thought we would give it a try with Adam and Suz following us. It was much more scenic, however, like a lot of old highways it is not a straight shot. We missed a turn and had to turn around, but we finally made it to Elgin to drop of Kizmet at Becky’s house for the day. We decided to continue on with the 20, but it was worse after Elgin, way more lights and far busier. We finally got off it and made it to the train station. Adam and Suz were none too happy about the little detour on the 20, they just wanted to get to Chicago and get on with it. In the end it takes forever so you really cannot be in too much of a hurry.

The train ride was rather eventful as the driver made some intelligible announment about something that sounded like the train was turning around at some point. We didn’t know so we hopped off the train and when it pulled away Natasha realized she had forgotten our backpack on the train with all our stuff in it for the day. It had our snacks, sweaters, Blake’s keys for the truck and RV and his ipad in it. Blake started searching the website for lost and found and we hopped the next train to the right stop. We couldn’t get a hold of anyone at lost and found, and we had no idea what to do, so we continued on with our day.

Once we got off the train at the right stop it was quite a walk to the Aquarium, but we did get to walk through Grant Park which was very pretty.

When we finally arrived at the Aquarium the line-up was massive, unbelievably so. We were allowed to go in the priority line because we had the passes through Costco. It was all stairs and Adam and Suz went to find a ramp or something so they could get their stroller up to the entrance. Well they disappeared forever and didn’t come back and we had no idea if we should go in, but they had our kids and I had our kids passes. We looked around and there was no ramp so we took off to find them. Well there is a whole different entrance if you have a stroller or wheel chair or whatever and it had no line. We got there just in time as they were at the cashier getting their passes and we all went in together. By this time it was lunch time and we headed straight to the cafeteria for some overpriced mediocre food. This Aquarium is very highly rated and it was pretty cool inside. With our tickets we were not allowed to go to all of the Aquarium, that was extra. I hate places that do that, oh you can go to these crappy exhibits for this admission, but this other super cool stuff will cost you more money. It’s ridiculous, one admission, people who decide this stuff, would be so much better. We didn’t upgrade because what was the point and it was so ridiculously busy it was hard to move around. We looked around for awhile, but got tired of the crowds. In the end it was a huge building with lots of fish.

Getting photo-bombed by Adam and Claire:

Isaac and Claire:

Blake did manage to finally get a hold of someone at lost and found by calling over and over again (they were closed). The lady was not too happy to be talking to him, but they did have our bag and we could pick it up on Monday, today was Saturday. Whenever lady, just wanted to know if you had it.

Kate waiting for the taxi, right before it rained:

We decided we would take the water taxi over to Navy Pier. We were standing in line and it started pouring rain, just dumping it down on us. It finally stopped and then the water taxi was ready for us to board. We got seats inside, which turned out to be a huge bonus because on the way it started pouring rain again even harder. By the time we got to the pier it had stopped raining. We walked around for a bit and then decided to look for a restaurant for supper. We walked around forever and nobody takes reservations in downtown Chicago. There we a couple of places we wanted to go to, but they had 2 hour line-ups. We finally found an Italian restaurant that could sit the 9 of us. As a bonus it had a small courtyard area with a large puddle right by the patio area which was perfect for the 3 young ones as they splashed and played until the supper got there, Simon was soaked. Supper was really good, but the service was brutal. They almost seemed pissed that that we were there and taking up so many tables, they were quite rude. We did not have dessert there and off we went strolling to find an ice cream place because the kids were promised ice cream. We finally found a frozen yogurt place and the kids got their dessert. Then it was off to find the train station and back to the campsite.

Enjoying the train ride:

We split up the carpark, with Blake and I going to get Kizmet and Suz and Adam taking all the kids so that the little ones could be put to bed. The girls slept in our RV again and Simon was in the cabin with his parents. Kizmet had a great day at Becky’s and she was ready for bed as well.

No games for us tonight everyone is too tired.

Sonya