Calderwoods: Chicago

Right after our Lake Powell trip Lisa and I flew out to Chicago for my dental implant convention. Lisa and I met in Chicago 12 years ago and haven't been back to that wonderful city since. We absolutely loved our time there and hold a special place in our heart for Chi-town. Needless to say we were incredibly excited to return. We flew into Chicago late Wednesday night and finally got to our hotel around 1:00 in the morning. When we woke up, we were treated with this view from our hotel room. It was stunning.

I went to a bone grafting class in the morning, and then Lisa and I went out on the town for the rest of the day. We rented the economy car, and boy was I glad we did. Parking in Chicago can be incredibly challenging. Thankfully our tiny Mazda fit in some of the smallest parking spots.

We went to lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant and then did a self guided walking tour of some of the famous sculptures found in Chicago. My favorite was Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, or more commonly known as "the bean". It's this massive sculpture made out of polished stainless steel. It has some really fun reflections of the city skyline.

Underneath the bean is a concave portion that provides some crazy circus like reflections.

A selfie on the side of the bean. You can see the rain dripping down the side of it.

Also at Millenium Park is this huge glass structure that has images projected from the inside out. This one of the lady was fun. She would open her mouth sometimes and water would spew out of that spot.

Another cool sculpture was the Picasso in Daley Plaza.

The final sculpture we visited was the Flamingo by Calder. It was cool, but not as impressive as The Bean.

On our way back to the car we found where historic Route 66 begins.

After our sculpture tour we went to the Hancock Center and went to the top of the observatory. The weather was unseasonably cool and rainy while we were there. We got some great views up top, but didn't get to see as far as we would have normally due to fog and rain. After enjoying the views above Chicago we did a little shopping on Michigan Avenue. Lisa got some cool shoes for 80% off.

That night we went to a restaurant that one of my patients owns. It's called the Dawson, and the food was awesome. My patient got us a reservation and told the staff to take care of us. We were treated like royalty. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was very fun. I guess it pays to know the right people.

For the appetizer we ordered the mussels. Lisa normally isn't a big shell fish fan, but she did enjoy these. They were the best mussels I've ever tried.

The next morning I took this little panorama shot from our hotel room. I couldn't get enough of that view.

After a full day of classes, Lisa and I ended the night at the awards ceremony for the ICOI where I received an award of Fellowship in the organization.

Here we are all dressed up in our fancy clothes. We are a good looking couple if I do say so myself.

Saturday I went to classes again in the morning, and then we headed up for an afternoon at Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play our dental school team, the Baltimore Orioles. One of our first dates was to a Cubs game, so we were excited to return and watch two of our favorite teams play. We had some awesome seats about 12 rows up by third base.

We ordered a foot long Chicago dog and this helmet full of nachos. So delicious.

The game unfortunately got rained out for 3 hours, and we had an evening show to go to so we didn't get to see beyond the 3rd inning, but it was still a blast.

On the way to our show, I took this photo of the Hancock Center from street level. It's tall, over 1,100 feet tall. For those of you from Utah that aren't familiar with it, the Church Office building is only 435 feet tall. The Sears Tower, another Chicago skyscraper, is 1,451 feet tall. Lisa and I did that sky deck when we were living in Chicago. We love the skyscrapers there.

Our dinner appointment was at Navy Pier. We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp company. It was a tasty dinner.

While we were waiting for the show to start, we enjoyed the sunset over the Chicago skyline. Navy Pier offers a great vantage point at sunset.

We had a lot of fun at the show. It was a Chinese Cirque type of show. They were incredibly talented acrobats.

That night after the show we returned to the hotel for one final evening of enjoying the views from our room.

We got to see the firework show they hold every Saturday night in the summer at Navy Pier.

We also got to see a building pay tribute to the local little league baseball team from Chicago that went to the Little League World Series championship game.