Dad's Route 66 Blog

Discovering Normal Rockwell's America

Chicago — Day 3

Written By: trevixan - Jul• 04•11

Well .. this is our last long day in Chicago. Today we devote it mainly to the Navy Pier. It was originally called Municipal Pier. That was back in 1916. I was the only pier to combine the business of shipping with the pleasure of public entertainment. During WW I, it housed several regiments of soldiers, Red Cross, Home Defense, and recruits.

In 1927 it was renamed Navy Pier as a tribute to those Navy personnel who served in WW I. But enough of the history, you want to see pictures. Well, let’s get going.

Here’s the entrance to Navy Pier.

We hadn’t had breakfast yet, so we found some place to eat immediately. Trevor picked this place.

Would you like to see what we had? Well .. here it is.

Notice anything different about the burger? You might see that the bun looks a little different, but do you know what it is? Well, it’s a pretzel bun. It’s a little chewier that regular buns. However, it is really good. We both enjoyed our burgers. Trevor and blue cheese on his and I had american.

After breakfast we sojourned on. Here is something I saw at the end of the pier.

My aunt up in Racine would call this a derrick. Looks a bit like a lighthouse to me. Who knows. I should look that up some time as well. Here is the Chicago skyline from that perspective.

Remember the Adler Planetarium I mentioned in Chicago — Day 2? Well .. here is the planetarium from the Navy Pier. Now, you have to understand that it is quite a ways away. But here’s what I got.

Here’s another skyline shot.

Ok .. back to the actual pier. They have a place for rides up top of the pier. They have a 140 foot Ferris wheel.

They also had miniature golf. Trevor and I played a game. I don’t want to talk about it! :O(

It was quite hot on Saturday .. we needed to get into some air conditioning. This is where we went.

It was really nice in there. We didn’t want to leave. But leave we had to. Oh, by the way .. this is where we were .. and we’d be back.

Ok .. these next two .. don’t ask .. just don’t ask.

We then went on an Architectural Cruise down the Chicago River. Did you know that Chicago is Algonquin for “garlic field”? What we were told was more like “stinky onion place”. Apparently, wild onions grew here when the Algonquin Indians were here.

Just thought I’d throw in a picture before we start our cruise. This picture comes from straight down our little boat.

This is the Onion building. Don’t remember what it’s really called. But here it is.

Now, this next picture might look familiar to you. It has been featured on more than one movie.

Do you see the cars there? Only twice have cars driven off that building. Once in a Steve McQueen movie and the other in another movie.

I won’t bore you with all of the pictures I took. You’ll have to come over when I get them printed. I don’t know the names of all the buildings, but here are my favorites.

After the hour long tour in the blazing sun without a whole lot of cooling breeze, we went back inside the Crystal Garden and found a place to eat.

This is what I had.

And a particular piece of artwork I liked.

After we left the Navy Pier, we took a walk around Chicago. Part of the walk took us here.

No .. we didn’t buy anything .. but …

The next two pictures are the only two buildings to survive the fire that destroyed Chicago back in 1872. They survived because they are made of limestone.

The first is the water tower.

And the pump house.

Here is a picture that I just liked.

Here’s one last shot of the river.

That does it for Day 3 of our tour of Chicago. Tomorrow (Sunday) we leave for the actual tour of Route 66.

See you then.

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10 Comments

  1. David Holloway says:

    Hi Dale – just got your email today about your route 66 journey. The Holloway’s in Sapulpa, Oklahoma would love to see you as you pass through. I sent a reply to your email address, so hopefully we can get together. Looks like Chicago is a great city. Have fun and be safe.

    David Holloway

  2. Annette Thorsen says:

    That’s ok dear if you did not go shopping at Nordstroms. I’ve got your back and did it for you. We have a new one that opened up here, well at least a Nordstrom Rack. I went for my first visit there yesterday. 🙂

  3. Retha says:

    Great pictures, once again. There’s an old story about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern that was lit and started the Chicago fire. Is there any truth about that? It’s a funny song actually. Well, as your pics show, Chicago has fully recovered. Really nice pics of the Crystal garden, the Navy pier and especially the artchitecture of the city. However, you should have gone into Nordstrom. Just think of all the wonderful gifts you could have brought home! 🙂 The burger looked so good. But no BBQ yet??? What’s happening here?

  4. Annette Thorsen says:

    David Holloway! Great to hear from you again! How nice that Dale and Trevor can connect with your family as they pass through. As I remember it seemed your children had many of the same likes as our children. It will be nice for them to meet. Greetings to your wife please! Hey Retha, I’m going have to read up on that ole cow again. Thanks for bringing it up.

  5. Alexander Thorsen says:

    you had mentioned that your aunt aunt would have called the lighthouse a “derrick”. here is the definition that i-got for it.

    Derrick-
    1.Machinery . a jib crane having a boom hinged near the base of the mast so as to rotate about the mast, for moving a load toward or away from the mast by raising or lowering the boom.
    2.Also called oil derrick. the towerlike framework over an oil well or the like.
    3.a boom for lifting cargo, pivoted at its inner end to a ship’s mast or kingpost, and raised and supported at its outer end by topping lifts.

  6. Darlene Vlach says:

    Well since my email is at work, I am just now catching up on your whole long weekend in Chicago. Wow some interesting things you are seeing. The cloud pics were really cool. How brave you were to go out on that ledge, thanks for sharing that with us. Don’t know that I could have eaten that wonderful looking pizza right after though.

    Loved the chicks for my chick picture. 🙂

    • trevixan says:

      Thanks. I thought the clouds were awesome. I just hope they translated well. We’ll see when I actually get prints of them. I especially like the one that looks like a tornado may be forming. It was an eerie feeling looking at those clouds.

  7. Mary Kauhi says:

    The piece of artwork you liked reminds me of Michael Godard’s olive art. Much the same kind of whimsy.

  8. Mary Kauhi says:

    The parking structure looks like a couple ears of corn on top of the parking garage. Very much an Illinois thing.

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