Our home away from home - 3800 N Lake Shore Blvd
We arrived outside Chicago from Omaha Nebraska at about 3:00 pm on Wednesday April 29, called our landlady from just outside O’Hare Airport and arrived at our beautiful apartment building located on Lake Michigan and pictured above, shortly after that.
Inside our apartment
As you can see, this apartment is first class, very chick. The area is located in an older very well maintained neighbourhood. The landlady who lives in the same building, was very particular about giving us almost a half hour of detailed instructions for taking good care of her apartment but to be fair, it was full of many beautiful luxurious things, nice furniture, hardwood floors, stainless steel kitchen etc ....
Thursday it rained so during the day, we sayed in the apartment and rested from the 5 straight days of driving from San Diego to Chicago. In the early evening, it stopped raining so we went for a little stroll and exlored our nice neighbourhood.
Friday morning, right after breakfast, we got ready to go on our first excursion to downtown Chicago. We hopped on the express bus right outside the front door of our apartment at around 10:00 and arrived downtown in less than 15 minutes. It was cloudy and a little cool, in the mid 50's but the forecast called for no precipitation. We bought our tickets for the hop on/hop off double decker bus tour, grabbed a seat in the front of the top deck and got on our way.
Influenced by internationally renowned architects and designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago is famous for its architecture from its charming neighbourhoods of ornate brick and brown stone residential buildings to its countless styles of business buildings and office towers in the downtown district. Even today, there are attractive modernistic buildings going up in downtown Chicago and the variety of beautiful structures seems to go on forever.
After two days of rain and drizzle, when we got up early on Saturday, it was a day of full sunshine. Later in the afternoon, we were expecting Rosella’s niece Lise, her husband Joe and their seven month son Jacob for supper. We had a few things to pick up in preparation for our guests so we decided to go for a nice long walk along Lake Michigan, which is less than 5 minutes away from our apartment, before stopping by the local grocery store for our list of things to buy.
Before leaving, we went around the apartment tidying up for our company later today By the time we got out for our stroll, it was a glorious sunny morning, the flowers were all in bloom and Chicagoans were out en masse walking, jogging, roller blading, biking, skate boarding, you name it, they were doing it. We walked along the edge of the lake past a golf course which is between our place and the lake, tennis courts and a good size marina just a short distance away.
Lise, Joe and Jacob, walking in the park
Sunday morning, we were up at 7:30 having breakfast and getting ready to go to Naperville, which is about 45 miles from downtown Chicago, to spend more time with Lise, Joe and Jacob. My handy dandy GPS brought us through downtown into what they call Lower Wacker Drive which is literally underneath Wacker Drive which is directly above and goes on for about 2 miles, in a cement corridor supported by a combination of cement and steel columns.
Because we were in such an enclosed area, we lost our GPS signal so we were sort of driving blindly, without any direction. While driving through this cement mausoleum, there were a few exits that we could have taken but regardless of this I decided to drive through to the end and when we drove out of the concrete maze, we immediately regained our signal and within 2 minutes we were on Interstate 290 and on our way to Naperville. We made it to Lise and Joe’s place without any more complications. Shortly after our arrival, we headed for church for Sunday celebration.
After church, we made our way to Portillo’s restaurant where they feature Barnelli’s ribs which have been voted best in Chicago. Rosella and her sister Dora ate there a few times when they came to visit Lise in 1998 and ever since then, whenever we have ribs in a restaurant, Rosella always says "yes they were pretty good but not as good as the ones Dora an I had in Chicago".
Well, finally I was in a position to decide for myself. We both ordered a full rack of baby back ribs and when they finally arrived, we opened the foil they were wrapped in and there they were, the famous Barnelli ribs. They looked succulent and they smelled delicious so I picked up a piece, took a bite and man o man, were they something else! Mouth watering, fall off the bone tender and dripping with a real nice tangy BBQ sauce; they were heavenly, just like they had been advertised for the last 11 years.
After filling our pie holes with those delectable ribs, we were ready to go strolling on Naperville’s Riverside walk, a beautifully manicured pathway which was developed along the river that runs through the lovely downtown area. By then, the temperature had reached the high seventies, it was a perfect afternoon for wandering along this scenic pathway, rambling on, taking turns pushing Jacob’s stroller along the way. There were tons of people enjoying this fine Sunday afternoon and when we went past a beautiful fountain, a young man had just proposed to his girlfriend before a group of their friends that were present and cheering.
We walked for quite a while before crossing a bridge to turn around and explore the other side of the river on the way back to our cars. From there, we proceeded to find an ice cream store, stoped and had a late afternoon delight.
Ice cream! Spare ribs! O my, what happened to our well intended resolutions?
Shortly after that indulgence, it was time to say good buy to Lise, Joe and Jacob. On our way back the our home away from home, our handy dandy GPS helped us find Oprah’s Harpo Studio. When we got there we got out of the car, walked around for a while, took a bunch of pictures and continued on our way back to 3800 North Lake Shore Blvd.
Outside Oprah's HARPO Studio
Monday was another bright and sunny day and by 9:30, we were ready to board the bus again to downtown. We stayed on the bus till we reached Grant Park, where President Obama gave his acceptance speech after the Presidential election. There we walked around the floral gardens and explored the Buckingham fountain a huge structure which spouts out water from dozens of fountainheads. It’s a marvellous fountain!
We then proceeded to stroll to the Navy Pier via the walkway along the edge of lake Michigan which was over two miles away. The weather was perfect for this beautiful walk. Docked along the edge of the lake was the former New Brunswick-Prince Edward Island ferry The Abegweit which now serves as a floating office for one of the marina along the coast. Having arrived at the main gate to the Navy Pier, we walked along the promenade past many excursion boats, restaurants, theatres, tourist shops and boutiques. We had a bit of lunch and of course a Hägen Dass ice cream cone for desert. We then walked back to the Pier’s main gate and hoped on the water taxi, a nice boat, which took us along the Chicago River to the South end of the Magnificent Mile. After we debarked the ferry, we strolled along to the northern end of the famous Michigan Avenue mile where we boarded the bus for our return to 3800 North Lake Shore Blvd.
After breakfast on Tuesday, we took the Halsted St. bus towards Chicago and got off about 20 blocks from our place to stroll through the fine neighbourhoods and walk our way back to our apartment. We rambled around for about two hours in nice residential neighbourhoods, stopping at a Marshall’s store along the way where I bought a couple of belts. We then stopped at a neighbourhood café and each had a café latte and a pastry treat. Upon our return, we passed by Jewels for a few items and spent the rest of the day getting our things ready and finalising our travel plans for our departure Wednesday morning, headed for Lancaster Pennsylvania where we will visit the Amish community. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in beautiful Chicago!
