Chicago Continued....

July 9
The fun continues.  Like many other cities that have a lot of attractions, Chicago offers what they call the CityPass.  Basically you purchase a booklet that gets you in to several different attractions and also offers a variety of other discounts.  With Joe with us we bought two booklets and used discount coupons for the purchase of the third ticket whenever needed.

Our first stop was the Art Institute of Chicago (actually, it was Starbucks across the street 😋).  The museum is incredible and I think we could have spent the whole day there.  We saw artwork by Monet, Manet, Van Gaugh, Picasso, Chagall, Warhol and much, much more.  We also saw a great deal of modern art, which is less familiar to me.  It really is fascinating!

I love seeing things that I have read about or seen elsewhere in person.  They become real and I get a true sense of being with greatness.

From the art museum we went to "Taste of Chicago", basically a food & drink festival.  I shouldn't say we went there because we walked into the venue and it was so crowded and the food & drink tickets were so expensive that we walked right back out.

We walked through Millennium Park making a stop at the iconic Cloud Gate sculpture by Anish Kapoor.  The sculpture is also called "the bean" because it basically looks like a giant silver bean.  It's quite interesting as it reflects the buildings around it.

  

Our feet were getting tired and we were all hungry so we decided to have a late lunch/early dinner. We ended up going to the bar that Joe and I had gone to the night before.  The Game Room is located on S. Michigan Ave on the second floor of the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel.  The menu is not overly extensive but does have plenty of variety.  The bar also offered a little piece of home with Citizen Cider's Unified Press Cider.  Prices were reasonable, especially when you consider we were in downtown Chicago.  Other than the cider there are two other aspects of this place that I really liked.
1) The atmosphere is totally old library/gentlemen's club (not strip club rather dark paneling, leather couches, a feeling that one should be sipping a fine brandy while smoking an even finer cigar kind of gentlemen's club).
2) The games are all free to play.  They have pool tables, bocce ball, shuffleboard, foos ball, chess and more.  During the day the games were wide open, no waiting.  Obviously the nighttime is busier so you sign up with the "game master", actually the door person, and you are put in line for the next available time slot.

Once we completed our meal we headed over to the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower.  At 1,450 ft. and 110 stories tall it is the 2nd tallest building in the U.S (One World Trade Centre being the tallest) and the 12th tallest building in the world.  Approximately 25,000 people enter the building each day.  Approximately 1.5 million tourist visit each year.  Originally when we saw the 25,000/day stat we thought they meant visitors, but in writing this and doing the math, that stat incorporates the people who work in the building.  The daily count of visitors runs a bit over 4,000/day.  The viewing area is on the 103rd floor and offers 360 degree views. It also includes a glassed in ledge that juts out from the main building that makes you appear that you are standing on air.

Being a tourist is very tiring....after a day of walking we headed home to a quiet evening of cards.

July 10
Joe goes back home today.  Originally we were going to go back into the city but the three of us had had enough and wanted to just chill.  We played more cards and went out to a late lunch before dropping Joe off at the airport.