This is part two of my Chicago trip recap and it’s all about part of our beautiful Saturday. We slept until 10 a.m. (11 a.m. Eastern time!!!). I guess we were exhausted from a long work week and a late Friday night. We didn’t even feel guilty about our late slumber, instead we high-fived and congratulated our type-A personalities for giving ourselves a break!
We were thrilled to wake up and discover an absolutely gorgeous day outside. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the 60s. We got dressed and hit the streets for a walk to meet our friend Maddie for brunch. We walked about three miles down Michigan Avenue (to humor me!) and through the Gold Coast neighborhood to make it to our brunch destination.
The menu was totally overwhelming and I kind of wanted one of everything. I finally narrowed it down to the vegetarian benedict. English muffin, artichokes, mushrooms, spinach, poached eggs and hollandaise with hash browns and fruit on the side.
After brunch we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and spend it outdoors. We walked a couple of miles back over towards Michigan Avenue to the Trump Tower.
We purchased tickets for a water architectural tour and staked out seats on the top level of the river boat.
The tour was so interesting! We cruised through three branches of the Chicago River while our tour guide gave us history on the different buildings and skyscrapers.
Our tour guide gave us tons of history on the city and its buildings both past and present. We talked about the Great Fire back in the 1870s, the rebuilding of the city, how Chicago got the nickname “The Windy City” (hint, it wasn’t due to the weather!) and he told us all about the current day status of the buildings.
Of course we took in the Sears Tower (now named the Willis Tower). Fun trivia…it was architecturally designed to sway up to 18 inches in either direction at the top of the tower. Can you imagine working in that building and feeling it sway!?
(source)
Speaking of can you imagine…I got to talking with someone about skyscrapers and they shared this photo “Lunch atop a skyscraper” that was taken by Charles C. Ebbets during construction of the GE Building at Rockefeller Center in 1932. CRAZY. This made me do some research about construction of skyscrapers in the early days and I learned that deaths were really common. Like 2 out of 5 men in some projects and they made four dollars a day for their work. Again, CRAZY.
Can you even imagine the stomach it would take to sit up there like that???
Heights…love them or hate them?
