Cleveland to Chicago

Hello again!  We went to a few museums yesterday and then on to a show with the Parrans before heading out the following morning for Chicago.  Once we got to Chicago we weren't sure where to go so we went to Millennium Park and parked in their parking garage.  Little did we know it was $23 for 0-3 hours!  I tried to turn around immediately but the ticket taker machine still demanded $23.  I walked up to this woman who was watching over the stations and saw a used ticket hanging out of the machine so I grabbed it.  She didn't notice because she was trying to avoid me by pretending to be asleep (she had just had a customer--no one falls asleep that quickly..).  I knocked on her window and asked if I could validate my ticket somewhere to make it cheaper or if I could drive out for free since I'd only been there for five minutes.  She shook her head both times so we left and had some lunch at Panera and walked around the park.  When we got back I tried the used ticket and it worked!  BOOM free parking.  :)

One other somewhat funny anecdote:

We plugged in Millennium Park's address into the GPS as we were leaving South Bend, IN.  After a while we noticed that the GPS said we should arrive at 2pm but it was 1:40pm.  There was no way we could drive 80 miles in 20 minutes.  I stared at it for a few minutes before it dawned on me: we're in the central time zone!  This is officially the farthest west my car has been (since my family has owned it, at least)!

I really liked the Cleveland Museum of Art.  It's free to go to and is in a really nice building(s).

Some impressionism.  My favorite to see is usually the Renaissance art (which they also had).

They had a little bit of everything--including armor!

The natural history museum was pretty cool.  We went to a Planetarium show and also saw their live animal show where we learned that Owl's talons can exert up to 300 psi (ten times that of human hands).

Krista's family took us to the Blossom Pavilion where the Cleveland Orchestra Band played some fourth of July songs followed by fireworks.

The whole pavilion

We left Cleveland the next morning (July 4th) and saw a whole lot of this on our way to Chicago.

Mile 790: South Bend, IN

We stopped in South Bend, IN to see Notre Dame University where my pal Tierney went.  The campus was really big and really nice although there's not much else out there :)

We found Tierney's dorm, Pangborn Hall!

Mile 900: Chicago, IL

The Bean in Millennium Park

Millennium Park was pretty cool.  This is the Pavilion in it where they were going to have a free orchestra that night with fireworks much like the one we saw in Cleveland.

Sam has been working outside Chicago so he drove in to hang out with us.  We met up at this bar by DePaul University called Marquee Lounge (1973 N. Halsted).  Then we walked over to Pequod's Pizza for a Chicago deep dish pizza.  All the college students around recommended it.  Then we trekked down to the beach from there.

We saw this view on our way to the beach.

Fireworks on the beach/lakefront

These pictures were on my Mom's phone so I didn't have them for the last post.  Me, Hannah, and Mom outside my house.  Fingers crossed this isn't the last time my Mom sees the Volvo!

Thanks for reading!