8/15 thru 8/19: Playing with Sarah in Chicago

What fun!  Sarah flew into the Chicago Midway Airport to spend a long weekend with us. We had many grand adventures. Sarah brought "The Book" which identifies must see place, restaurants, and activities that are not to be missed. We were able to accomplish many of them.

Dinner the first night was at the Gage.  Here are our two beers, and Sarah's cocktail. The appetizer was a fresh cherry salad with ricotta cheese.

The next day we took a food tour. We got to experience authentic deep dish pizza, a German Tea Shop, a spice shop where they grind their own spices, a chocolate shop where they had the most divine toffee I have ever had, and a middle eastern restaurant where we had falafel sandwiches and very strong coffee. Our tour guide is a retired chef, so we got to hear all the details behind the lovely presentations.

You would think we wouldn't need dinner, but after Paula and Sarah did some shopping, it was off to  Eataly, three floors of all things Italian and related to food.  We finished our evening with cannoli, but Leslie said Boston's North End bakeries did a better job with lighter shells than these.

The next day Paula and Sarah took the Frank Lloyd Wright house tour in the morning, and we all took a boat tour in the afternoon. Our tour guide gave us lots of architectural tidbits about the buildings we saw. Here's a cross section.

This is a paddle/beer boat on the river. We checked into it, but the waitlist for it is weeks long.

This mosaic wall was fun. It had a water fountain under it that the children were playing in. Each of the human gargoyle models is reputed to be a Chicago native.

Then to our great surprise, Carmina Burana was being performed at this outdoor shell. The accoustics were amazing.

And one cannot miss the Chicago Bean!

And the lights at night were wonderful too. We felt fine walking around this big city and experienced much it had to offer.

On our last day, we moved out of the downtown loop and explored Andersonville... because it had a gastropub listed in Lonely Planet. It's a fine star in the constellation Chicago's unique neighborhoods.  We arrived around 10 am, far too early for lunch and fortified ourselves with handmade coffees and pastries at La Coulomb. Quite lovely. We shopped a bit and then headed to Hopleaf. The food was excellent and the beer selection even better.  Andersonvillle also lays claim to having one of the last nine feminist bookstores in the entire U.S.  Leslie shopped here when on a business trip over 25 years ago. So glad they still exist. We shopped antiques, handmade crafts, and Paula got an "edgy" haircut from Caleb and a little kibbitzing from Sarah. Short hair under a bike helmet is a thing of beauty.

Since we're off to Michigan's lower peninsula for more bike riding, we couldn't resist this poster hanging in Hopleaf.