Yesterday was a long day. We boarded a chartered bus at 7 a.m. to head for Chicago on an outing sponsored by Winona Lake based Grace College and Seminary Alumni Department. We pulled into the Manahan Orthopedic Capital Center parking lot at 11:23 p.m. The alumni department provided us with a goodies bag of bottled water, candy, brochures for Water Tower Place, a sheet of words to Christmas carols, among other things. We did sing some of the carols enroute to Chicago. We knew over half of the people on the bus so it was a fun outing for us.
There was a trivia contest as we drove along, too. My husband won a prize, a nice cooler.
Our first scheduled stop was Gino’s East for lunch. This was included in the trip package that we purchased. We were off-loaded on Superior Street, just a block from the Magnificent Mile. We were a bit early. Several of us visited the Neiman Marcus store on the corner, not to buy anything, but to use their restroom facilities. My husband and I also went into the Disney Store on Michigan Avenue. The song playing and the featured display was from Frozen. Two little girls sang along as they strolled thru the store. This movie has definitely captured the imagination of little girls.
Gino’s East began in 1966. This original location shut down for awhile, but is now open again. I had eaten at one on the West side of Chicago maybe 8 or 9 years ago. Besides the deep-dish Chicago style pizza, Gino’s is known for the graffiti scribbled on the walls, booths, chairs, etc. It was interesting that there were signs in the bathroom asking people to not write on those walls. We had family-style-served salad and pasta. The servers brought us individual slices of pizza once we had chosen from the four options. This pizza is very filling. I had the Meaty Legend, my husband had the sausage patty. Yes, they cook up sausage as a patty and put it on the pizza whole with the other toppings. We split a slice of crumbled sausage pizza. The wait staff did a good job considering we had over 40 people.
The recommended post-lunch destination was Water Tower Place, two blocks north. My husband and I went south about 5 blocks to the Nordstrom complex. Besides the department store, there were specialty shops. We split up. He wanted to stop at Harry and David’s. Would that have something to do with his wife asking for Moose Munch for Christmas? I won’t know until Christmas day as he toted a plastic bag with his purchase inside of his Grace bag. We also stopped in a multi-level Crate and Barrel store. Lots of people out shopping the stores of the Magnificent Mile even though it was pretty nippy. We were glad that the forecasted rain never showed up. I had thought about catching a city bus to the Loop, but we instead went to Water Tower Place, an 8-story complex. I browsed Macy’s and a few of the 100 stores. Most of the stores were a bit pricey for me. I didn’t go into the American Doll store, but I did stop in the Lego Store.
Lego girl and puppy inside of play area where kids could put together Lego creations.
Since Water Tower Place wasn’t well-matched to our shopping criteria, we walked part of Michigan Avenue instead. At the foot of the Hancock Tower was a city Christmas tree adorned with lights. There appeared to be traffic gridlock as pedestrians often crossed against the light meaning vehicles wanting to turn left towards the lake were unable to do so and got left in the center of the intersection. That meant the northbound traffic could not move either. The bus in my photo sat in front of the tree thru at least 3 light cycles before inching thru the intersection.
I doubt the observation level of the Hancock Center got much business; it was very cloudy and hazy.
We went south again to the Water Tower that survived the Great Chicago Fire.
Across the street was a Hershey’s Chocolate Store with all kinds of Reeses and Hersheys products. They had a dessert counter which also served hot and cold drinks. We ordered some hot cocoa which we mostly drank in the store. We also browsed the store of the Museum of Contemporary Art which had some cute products. There was a pizza cutter designed as a bicycle, with the wheels of the bike incorporating the cutting edges. At $23, we passed on buying though.
At 5:30 CST a narrator from the Chicago Trolley Company boarded our bus, and we headed for Lincoln Park Zoo via Lake Shore Drive. This was promoted as a lightly-narrated tour. He did point out some things along the way and shared Chicago trivia. We had about 25 minutes to tour the lighted zoo. The only animals we saw were ones made of lights. In the middle was a fantastic display with lights laid out on the ground that lit up like a sweep hand of a clock to broadcasted music, constantly changing the pattern.
The white streaks were a special lighting effect. Clear plastic tubing hung from the tree and the white light moved along the tube. It looked like light raining down from the skies.
My point and shoot camera can only give you a poor idea of the lights. They were spectacular. There was no entrance fee, and lots of families walked through the grounds together. There is an ice skating pond where you can rent skates; we didn’t walk that far in the limited time we had.
Our narrated tour continued with a drive down Michigan Avenue, then a drive-by of Navy Pier, a short stretch down State Street where Macy’s (formerly Marshall Fields) had wonderful huge trumpet decorations extending from the building several levels above the street and decorated windows which unfortunately we really couldn’t see well. We then were dropped off along the edge of Daley Plaza where the Christkindlmarket was set up.
We munched on those back on the bus. I also wanted to buy a lebkuchen (decorated German gingerbread cookie). This treat dates back to the 13th century. You can read a short history on Wikipedia of lebkuchen. Mine was made in Germany re the label, though the motto and decoration obviously were made for a certain market. There were other mottos and even some skinny Santas.
The wares at the market were mostly international and included cuckoo clocks, carved ornaments and knick knacks, Polish dishware, woven scarves from Nepal, India brassware, beautifully decorated Christmas ornaments, wool knitted caps and gloves, felted slippers.
I would have liked to sleep on the way home, but they played White Christmas with Bing Crosby on the DVD screens which kept me awake.
One could adapt this trip by going to the Art Institute or if slightly warmer taking the local-led walking tours of Millennial Park or The Loop from the Chicago Cultural Center. These would require taking a city bus south of the Chicago River at $2.25 per ride. My husband went to the Art Institute with his sister about a month ago when her employer sponsored a shopping trip to Chicago via bus. However, some of our bus mates came back loaded down with packages, so if shopping is your thing, the original “intent” served well.
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