So what is the first thing you do when you get to Chicago? Wrigley Field, Broadway Show, Sears Tower....Nope, Nope and Nope...Ya grab a Chicago-style hot dog with the works at the Famous Portillo's. It's the only way to really start off your downtown sightseeing right in Chi-town. So, um yeah, it was pretty much as good as it gets. A huge all beef dog on all a poppyseed bun with onions, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, relish, sport peppers, a dash of celery salt and a pickle spear right smack on the top. Yum!!!
We headed over to the Navy Pier and strolled over to take a Ferris Wheel ride that offered spectacular views of the skyline and Lake Michigan. It was extremely windy up there, go figure...and the small ferris car we were in was rocking back and forth, it was a bit scary, especially after seeing all those carnival rides that go bad and people plummeting to there deaths, so Ryan and I just stayed calm and made nervous jokes about the whole thing to ease the fear.
We got down to the bottom and walked a little farther towards the end of the pier and looked out at the beautiful Lake Michigan. It was huge!!! We took a couple pics and then walked back towards Downtown. Before we left the pier, a tall ship named "Windy" caught our eye and we decided to take sail through the lake, Pirates of the Caribbean style. We entered on the ship where a gent, a little bit older than us, was dressed up as a pirate. He told us that we were in for a treat where he would tell us of long ago pirate tales. We sat where there was room and listened to the instructions and stories of this silly, captivating piratesman. The ship took off and once we were out in the Lake, the Captain instructed his crew to hoist the sails. The crew worked tirelessly against the whipping Chicago wind and alas, both huge sails were up and we were cruising.
It was so cool to be such an old ship like that and sailing through the Lake like ye old pirates. Ryan and I were sitting next the bow up top at the back of the ship, just enjoying the beautiful weather, I started to notice the bow really whipping and squeaking pretty bad, almost as if it were rubbing against something and was on too tight. I just kept turning around and watching it, until..yep, the freaking bow just flipping snapped in half. This heavy piece of wood just broke off and was headed for this family of 5 kids on the other side of us. Luckily, one of the crew members, who was a petite young girl, grabbed the bow, basically jumped on top of the thing so it wouldn;t fall on this family or go over board. The Captain called for the other crew members on the other side to help her out and get the sail down and under control. In turn though, this left another petitie woman manning the other sail by herself that was still in tact. The Captain called all of us down to the main part of the ship where we would be safe until they could control the broken sail. The other woman manning the sail still up in the air was doing an incredible job and with such great strength, got the main sail under control and brought down. The women aboard the ship's crew were definitely my hero's that day.
So pretty exciting event to occur while on a tall ship, but the whole reason we decided to do it, was to sail in a tall ship, not cruise with the motor on. Definitely a let down in the sailing department. But we did get to hear great pirate tales and have an exciting pirate tale to tell of our own.
After the tall ship we headed over to the legendary Pizza Duo, which is right down the street from Pizza Uno, which are owned by the same family for generations. We grabbed the famous deep dish Chicago-style pizza that Ryan and I love so much and went to town. Sampled the local brew and really feasted. After that we wheel-barrowed our butts outta there and strolled through more of the city at night.
We took some pics over at the park where the fountain from the intro to Married with Children was filmed. Classic!!! All in all, Chicago was a really clean and cool city.
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