Chicago Vacation 2006

Our Chicagoland vacation started out in Chicago on Rush St.  This is the view from the window of our 18th floor room in the Sutton Place Hotel.

The hotel room had a fun purple chair that we both took turns sitting in.

The biggest difference between a cheap motel and a pricey hotel is the bed.  This one was big and comfortable.

Dinner at Gibsons.  It was right across the street from the hotel.  We didn

Don enjoys the shrimp bisque.  It was delicious!

We ordered a filet mignon and a giant lobster tail.  Both were delicious.

After dinner we stopped by Dublin

Benia makes the entrance to The Back Room jazz club a little more appealing.  Unfortunately we cannot recommend this place because the band never showed up, so the only jazz we heard came from a CD.

Benia samples another Cosmopolitan at Luxbar.  This place looked kind of cool, but it turned out to be loud, trendy and expensive.

After a long night of drinking on Rush St., the best way to recharge your batteries is with a trip to The Original Pancake House.

The train takes us back to downtown Chicago.

Requisite glass building shot.

In the continuing theme of beer drinking that formed the backbone of the vacation, we made sure to stop by The Berghoff.

Benia enjoys a Berghoff Dark.  The bar has been remodelled significantly since the last time we were here.  They opened it up and made it more like a restaurant.

Millenium Park is the tourist hot spot these days so we made sure to check it out.  The giant video wall fountains were interesting for a few minutes.

Pretty in pink.

Her boyfriend was taking a picture so I decided that it would be a nice shot too.

Benia enjoys looking at herself in the big mirrored bean.

Reminds me of a modern version of The Blob.  RUN!  Run for your lives!

Millenium park has a large open air space for concerts.  Benia is just taking a break.  There is no one performing this afternoon.

Nature coexists with the city.  We were very interested in seeing the gardens with native plants that were part of Millenium Park.

This huge wasp caught our eye.  It is called a cicada killer wasp.  For comparison, a more average bee joined us for this picture.