A Day of Golf, and a Day In Chicago

(Joliet, IL) Hi 68 Lo 54 -- This interesting rig showed up in our park the other day.

It's a "rolling hotel" from Rotel Tours, a german touring company that operates in many countries, including the U.S. We assume they're German tourists are here to tour Chicago. Quite an impressive rig!

Wednesday I got up at 5:30am (ouch!). Son Rick and I had a 7am tee time at Sanctuary Golf Club in New Lenox, about 20 minutes away. I've played exactly two full rounds of golf in my life. Rick hasn't played in a while, but he still shot in the low 90's and parred 4 or 5 holes. I shot... well, who cares. (We weren't real exact about keeping score.) We sure had a lot of fun though. Nothing beats quality time with my boy!

Yesterday (Thursday) we had a full, fun day in Chicago with Rick and his lovely wife Laura. Rick drove, and it was nice to just sit back and not worry about finding our way around Chicago. Our first stop was Grant Park to see Agora, a group of sculptures that's part of the Chicago Public Art Program. It consists of 106 nine-foot tall headless torsos mad of cast iron, all the work of Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. You can read more about it here.

Here's Dee. You can see how big these things are!

Our next stop was for lunch, at Au Cheval in the West Loop.

While waiting for a table (about 40 minutes... the place is really popular) we took time for a group selfie.

Au Cheval is know for the burgers. Many people consider them the best burgers in the world. Rick and I love burgers, so we couldn't let that go unchallenged. :) We (along with Laura) ordered the cheeseburger with a fried egg and bacon added. We got the "single", which had two patties. The double had three, which is kind of strange. Isn't it yummy looking?

The burger was good... really good! But Rick and I both agreed it wasn't the best in the world, to us anyway. The taste of the meat was slightly lacking compared to my overall favorite, which was at a place called Stella's in Omaha, NE. But I'm not complaining. :)

Dee (not a burger lover) had an omelette, which had a fancy name and had a fancy French sauce inside it. She said it was the best omelette she ever tasted.

With our tummies full, we headed back across town to Navy Pier for the highlight of the day, a Classic Lake Tour of Lake Michigan on a Shoreline Sightseeing tour boat. We've been to Chicago every year we've been on the road and never had the chance to see the Chicago skyline from out on Lake Michigan. We were disappointed that the weather didn't cooperate. Just as we got to the boat it started raining lightly. But it didn't dampen our spirits too much.

The views of Chicago were really cool! Here is Navy Pier on the right side of the photo.

This is the other side of Navy Pier.

Laura and Rick are enjoying the view.

The tallest building in Chicago is the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower).

I sure wish it had been a nice sunny day. It would have made for much nicer photos. But Rick is a very talented photographer with some pretty good post processing skills. Using a program called Lightroom, he did some magic on one of the above photos.

Here's the original photo.

And magically he created a nice sunny day. Amazing!

+Rick has some beautiful photos of Chicago on his Etsy page, which you can view by clicking here.

By the time we headed out of the city rush hour was underway, which made for very slow going. It also made me and Dee very thankful that we no longer have to worry about the daily work commute.

We had a great time. Nothing beats fun with family. See you in a few days.