Friday, September 12, 2014

Day 118 Visiting Chicago

Woke up to a cloudy, cold day after the angry skies passed. No rain, but also no boating today, instead we took the 8:40 train to Chicago with Cassie and Tom from Seawolf. Cost us $2.50 to take a 48 minute ride to the Windy City. At first we just wandered the streets looking at the tall buildings and the river that runs through town. Made our way to the Navy Pier and visited the famous Billy Goat Tavern and Grill. Why is it famous? Remember on Saturday Night Live many years ago when they would do the skit about "cheese booger, cheese booger, cheese booger - no fries, cheeps". Well, this is the place Dan Akroid and John Belushi went to and got the idea for the iconic sketch. Had a few drinks there and, of course, a cheesebooger - bought the t-shirt and continued to explore Chicago. We started looking for the FREE trolley to travel back to downtown. I asked one tour trolley driver about it and he said that it had stopped services when the kids go back to school. Then he sighed and told us to get in and he'd take us to where we wanted to go. For the next 10 minutes, he did an impromptu comedy routine that had us laughing all the way back to State Street. He said that the only thing tourists remember from his tour is that "8 blocks equal a mile in Chicago." What a great town! Went to an Irish Pub, then Harry Carey's, which was like a sports museum. Amazing place. Harry was a famous baseball announcer known for excitedly saying "Holy cow!" While taking a tour of the place, we learned that Frank Nitti, one of Al Capone's hitmen, lived in the basement in the '30's. There was a safe and jail cell down there used by "the gang" and tons of original news articles about the mob trials and when he was gunned down. Eventually we made our way to the Cantina which was a very comfortable, sleek and upscale Mexican restaurant where our server was from Russia. Hmmm. We sat in front of a fireplace and ate delicious, unusual half price tacos. Found out that the Hyatt had a bus shuttle that would take us directly back to the casino next to the marina for free. Perfect! We ended up back at the boat around 9:30. A long, fun-filled day in Chi-town. 


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