Monday, May 16, 2011

Come Fly Away With Me

While I'm still riding my Chicago high, I wanted to share some photos & video of our trip with you guys.  The idea behind doing this "Come Fly Away With Me" post, which will be recurring anytime Jayme or I travel somewhere fun, is that we can take y'all along for the ride & make you feel like you were right there with us.  So, settle in, get comfy & enjoy...

We departed Richmond last Wednesday morning for Chicago & things got off to a great start when we realized that our neighbor, Diane, who is a flight attendant, was servicing our flight to Chicago.  No kidding...we couldn't believe our luck!  We took this as a sign of good things to come.

And boy were we right.  We landed at O'Hare early...imagine that.  And we'd heard nightmares about having to deal with the crowds & complexity of O'Hare, but we found getting to baggage claim a breeze & after a quick call to our car service, our driver, Al, pulled up at the front doors of the airport & whisked us off to the city. 



We arrived at our hotel in the Loop, the Wit, a little before 10am & although check-in isn't normally until 3pm, they had a room ready for us to get right in to.  Now, I had poured over photos of our hotel online for weeks, but I never expected us to get a corner room, so imagine my excitement when I saw these views from our hotel room:


We did a little exploring of our immediate area, which included scoping out a place to get a real Chicago hotdog & a little shopping at the original Marshall Field's, now known as Macy's.  Then we met up with Chris's college roommate & our great friend, Lou, to hit up Wrigleyville for a Cubs game. 

You know the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do"??  Well, we adapted the attitude of "When in Chicago, do as the Cubbies do" & it served us well!  After purchasing some authentic Cubs gear & having a bite to eat at Casey Moran's, we headed in to see the second oldest ballpark in the country (next to Fenway Park).  Lou scored us some amazing seats (thank you so much Lou!!) & we settled in for a great game against the St Louis Cardinals.

 
We quickly learned that Chicago's weather has a mind of it's own & can change on a dime.  Crazy dark clouds rolled in behind us & before we knew it the wind picked up & the rain started coming down.  We took cover (with about 400 other people) in a tunnel right behind our seats to wait out the rain.  But it rained & it rained & it rained.  We made the call to head out before the mass exodus, but atleast we can say that we saw a game at Wrigley Field.  By the way, the game resumed after a rain delay & the Cubs went on to beat the Cardinals 11-4 while we paid a visit to the hotel bar for a nightcap.

Thursday morning the sun was out once again & the weather was perfect...upper 70's.  We got breakfast at a well-known, tucked away spot on Wabash called Heaven on Seven.  And OH MY GOSH did it live up to it's name!!  Let me just tell you, the Bloody Mary's there are NO joke!  And the food was devine!!  It was exactly the fuel we needed to shop Michigan Avenue for the next 7 hours.  I found out why they call it the "Magnificent Mile"...and it's not just because of the Tiffany & Co, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus (which were all quite nice), but it's also because this is the sight of the city during the middle of May when all of the tulips are in bloom:
  

That night we hit up the popular Lou Malnati's for the infamous deep-dish pizza...mmmmm:


Then it was on to the Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower) to take in the city's skyline at night.  After a quick & ear-popping elevator ride to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor, the tallest building in the United States (thanks to the two antenna on top) provided quite the thrill, especially to those who dared to step out onto one of the glass ledges that jut out 4 feet from the western facing side of the building.  Yep, I did it!  That first step out was a little intimidating & I definitely had that gut-dropping feeling of wondering if my feet were ever going to make contact with anything other than the air below the glass!  And this is coming from a girl who has ZERO fear of heights!!

Then we finished off an amazing day by listening to a little live music in the lobby of our hotel.  It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Friday morning started off gorgeous.  We walked to Millenium Park to see the Cloud Gate (affectionately known as the Chicago "bean"), the Pritzker Pavilion, the Lurie Gardens & the BP Bridge.  We made our way over to Lakeshore Drive for a quick look around just as some low-lying clouds rolled in & the temperature plummeted about 20 degrees within an hour.  It didn't stop us from enjoying an al fresco lunch at Tavern at the Park...this also happened to be my favorite meal in Chicago...



We ventured back to our hotel to grab our jackets, then we hit Michigan Avenue again to purchase a few things that we had taken the night to "sleep on."  We wrapped up the afternoon by taking a famous Chicago Riverboat Archictectural tour...a chilly one at that!!  But it couldn't rain on our parade.  At this point, Chicago had been so good to us that it could have dumped 4 feet of snow on us & the perma-grins we had on our faces would have remained.  There is only one way to see this city in all of it's glory & that's definitely by riverboat.  Just take a look at these views:







To be quite honest, I almost completely ran out of gas at this point.  I would have been content with ordering room service, but Chris encouraged me to rally back, so that we could enjoy one more dinner in the city.  We didn't venture far though, just down to one of the hotel restaurant's, State & Lake, for a little surf and turf, then up to the rooftop bar for the sights & sounds of Chicago's nightlife.  No one had to sing me to sleep that night, I'll just say that!

Our final morning we headed back to Heaven on Seven for one last heavenly dish & one more heavenly Bloody Mary!  A few last minute shopping opportunities & one Starbucks coffee later, we were getting in the back of our car headed back to O'Hare for the journey home.

Chicago, you kept it "real"...we got to experience everything that this amazing city is known for...from Wrigley Field to the Magnificent Mile to the Chicago River to the crazy, unpredictable weather.  We'll be back again one day.  Thanks for the memories!



To make sure that you guys could experience our vacation along with us every step of the way, I tried to video & tweet as much as possible.  I compiled some "snippets" into a little tour before our video camera died on us during the riverboat tour.  Hope you enjoy...



I'd love to hear from you if you've ever been to Chicago.  Let us know what your favorite thing to do/see there is, because we'll put it on our list for trip #2.

Mendi

19 comments:

  1. I'm so glad y'all had so much fun!!! Chicago is one of my most favorite cites =) I've been 5 times - my husband has been once and is begging to go back. I've done so many different things there. Thanks for sharing your trip with everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! That really looks great!:)

    xoxo
    Farah from Fashionfabrice

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Tropical Mind! We'll definitely be back...hopefully sooner rather than later! And I'm hoping that we can talk Jayme & her husband into joining us on our next trip. I feel like we got to see so much, but there are definitely a lot of things that we ran out of time to see. Thank you so much for dropping a comment...and for tweeting me with Chicago suggestions! You're the best!

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you Farah! We hope you'll come back & follow our blog on the regular. We're going to check yours out right now. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love this post! Great photos and the food on here is making my mouth water.

    http://foodfashionandflow.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi LV!! Thank you so much! Just left you a comment on your blog as well!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Looks like such a fun trip! I've always wanted to go to chicago, and I love the skyline photos! I have city skylines all over my apartment.

    Shasie
    Live Life in Style

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looks like fun! I have never been, but that bean would def be on top of my list to see :)

    xxo
    http://www.iamheizl.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jayme and Mendi: Lucky you!! I'm so jealous right now, I'll definitely take a look at your blog to see photos at it! =D Lovely pictures by the way!

    www.agnesbeautycorner.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Shasie! If you love city skylines, then you MUST get to Chicago one day. The Chicago Riverboat Architectural tours are amazing!!! You would love it. :) Thank you so much for leaving a comment!

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Haze! The "bean" was really awesome & the photos that you could get of the Chicago skyline & your reflection in it were really cool. Thanks so much for dropping us a comment!

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hey Agnes Beauty Corner! Thanks so much for becoming a recent "follower"...we really appreciate the support! So glad you enjoyed the photos of my trip to Chicago. We had a blast & wish that we could go back TOMORROW!!!

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love Chicago! Love the photos, definitely made me miss Chitown. Tavern on the Park - yummy & Michagan Ave. reminds me of NYC when it wasn't as crowded. Had you had a fantastic time.

    xoxo

    Cinderella's Closet NYC

    ReplyDelete
  14. Running along the water! (And shopping of course!)

    http://productdoctor.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hey Cinderella's Closet! ChiTown was so much fun! We can't wait to go back. :) Thank you so much for leaving a comment!

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi Product Doctor! Thank you so much for checking us out & dropping us a comment! :) We definitely saw lots of people taking advantage of running along the water...and why not, with a view like that?!? But the shopping...oh my goodness...that's what gets me in trouble!

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great pictures!

    Erika

    ReplyDelete
  18. This is pumping me up for my Chi-town trip this summer! Last time I went, we went to this 24-hour breakfast diner called Eggsperience almost every day. It was AMAZING! We also walked down to the little beach once or twice down by the Navy Pier. We also tried out Weber's which was amazing & a bunch of great pizza places. We didn't catch a game at Wrigley Field so I'm adding that to my list this year. I'm from STL so catching a game vs. the Cards would be GREAT! :D

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hey Christie! Now you're making me want to go back to Chicago!! Have fun...I know you will. :) Have you picked a hotel yet?

    ~Mendi

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...