Thursday, June 30, 2022- Chicago

    We started today with an intentionally slow pace, to try to make up for our hectic early rise yesterday.  We took the morning slowly, and eventually left the hotel to go to Navy Pier in Chicago.  It's a good thing we did go slow because most of the shops and restaurants there didn't even open until 11:00 and were still closed when we arrived at about 10:30.  

     In front of Navy Pier is the Polk Brothers Park, which has a big fountain that invites kids to come splash in and cool off.  We knew that Abby would like getting wet here, and went there first while we waited for the rest of the place to open.  There were many other kids there, most only slightly older than Abby.  She did love it, but she didn't pay much attention to the spurting water of the fountains.  She was very content to just splash in the puddle that collected in the flat area in front of them.  Of course, she has learned from Peppa how much fun it is to jump up and down in puddles, muddy or not.  It was a bright, hot day already, and the water felt good.

     The shops and restaurants of Navy Pier opened, so we started to look through the stores.  We especially like the Chicago themed things.  In the windows of Harry Caray's Tavern were Cubs uniforms, of course, but also Bill Murray's outfits from Ghostbusters and Groundhog's Day.  There were many Chicago-style restaurants to choose from for lunch, but Julie had a hankerin' for the nachos from Margaritaville.  She first had them here with some teaching colleagues when they had come to Chicago together for a special education conference, and she wanted them again.  We didn't expect that it was going to take so long, though.  We thought we were ahead of the lunch-rush, but we had to wait for probably 45 minutes before the nachos came out.  Emma then went to a different place for some gelato.  She thinks she got something with raspberry, but the menu was all in Italian, while Julie and Abby split a strawberry one.

     We had originally talked about going to the Children's Museum or even the Ferris Wheel, both of which are at Navy Pier, but when we were finally there, we weren't up to doing either of them.  Scott had liked the idea of a quick boat ride on the Water Taxi, since Abby has liked similar boat rides in Buffalo.  He thought it would be cheap and cool.  It was neither.  The Water Taxis aren't really meant for that.  It cost $30 for all of us to go one-way, and then we had to disembark and go up a flight of stairs at Michigan Avenue in order to buy another set of one-way tickets to return.  And the sun was beating down hard the whole way.  The girls rode inside the boat for most of the ride, but Scott sat out in the sun.  There were interesting buildings and Chicago-style draw bridges as we went up (down?) the Chicago River, of course, but when we decided to take the Michigan Avenue taxi instead of the one to the museums, we hadn't taken into account that much of the view would be dominated by a building with a big ugly name emblazoned on it. You know the name.  It starts with T and rhymes with "My Rump."  But Scott managed to take video of the scenes without letting that name into the view at all.  Still, it was probably a mistake to try to take the taxis.  Chicago is like New York and London.  It is filled with things to do, but it is expensive.  When we got back to Navy Pier, we had a $37 parking bill to pay too.

     Julie has long been a fan of the Chicago shows on NBC- Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago PD.  We knew that these programs were really filmed in and around Chicago and a sharp viewer can pick out landmarks in many of the scenes. We learned of the location of two important sites from Chicago Fire and had it on our itinerary to visit them today.  First there is the Chicago Fire Station itself.  We left the Loop and followed the GPS as it took us a little south and east to 1360 S Blue Island Avenue.  The station for the Chicago Fire Department Engine 18 is the real life setting for the show's fictional Firehouse 51.  The three big red garage doors were closed today, but we were able to park in front and stand in the drive way.  As we looked around, we could not only recognize the fire station, but also many of the surrounding buildings and the view of the Willis (aka Sears) Tower.

     After a few moments at Firehouse 51, we drove on to the site of "Molly's Bar."  On the shows, this place is a bar that a group of firefighters bought together and many of the characters frequent.  In real life, it is Lottie's Tavern, at 1924 W Cortland Street.  The outside of the tavern is recognizable, but so too is the inside.  The white lights that hang from the ceiling on the show are there in real life too. Apparently, they only filmed here on site for the first two seasons and then they moved to a sound stage for the later seasons.  Even so, they had to copy the place they had already established here when they built the new sets.  We ended up having dinner at "Molly's" and enjoyed the food.  Scott had a "Molly's By Day IPA" to drink, and Julie ordered a "Chicago PD Burger."  

     We finished the day by going back to the Woodfield Mall.  Julie wanted to get some shorts at JC Penney and   Then, we discovered that the unthinkable, but perhaps inevitable, had happened.  Bunny has gone to whatever place that much-loved-but-lost toys go.   Bunny, also known as Uh-Oh the Bunny, Bun Bun, and lately just "Money," disappeared somewhere in the mall.  Perhaps he didn't know when the game of hide and seek was supposed to end while Abby was in the clothes racks at JC Penney.  All we know is that we looked up and down the mall for him even as the doors were closing, but we were unable to find him.   He has been Abby's nearly constant companion for more than two years.  [In truth, the doctor had advised us to "throw him out" and break Abby of him, but we had wanted to wait until after the trip to do that, and wanted to do it in our own way and on our own time.  Now, it will happen much sooner.]  Abby bounced back pretty quickly when we took her to the hotel pool.  She's in pretty good spirits, but every once in a while, she notices that he's missing and cries out for him.