We were playing today by ear because the Weather Channel said that Chicago was supposed to get thunderstorms off and on all day long. I was upset about that because despite all the cool things we’d seen and done so far, I really had my heart set on taking a boat ride on the Chicago River, which runs through the heart of downtown. Fortunately, there are plenty of museums to check out in the city so we were prepared for the rain, but hoping that it held off.
Our hoping paid off because the rain held off, too! In fact, there were only a few clouds in the sky and the sun even came out for a bit. When we woke up and saw the clear weather, we grabbed a quick breakfast at one of our favorite spots, Corner Bakery – I think we’ve been there or Panera Bread four times so far this trip! I know it’s not very exciting, but it’s good, fast, and reliable, so why not! Can’t be original all the time!
Anyway, we ate and then headed a few blocks south to the river to buy tickets for the 12:30pm architectural boat tour.
Anyway, we ate and then headed a few blocks south to the river to buy tickets for the 12:30pm architectural boat tour.
I was a little worried because while the weather was cooperating, the line looked very long and I was afraid we would have to stand or hang out on the lower deck, which I didn’t want to do. That’s not the point of the tour. The boat is set up with a snack bar and a few seats on the lower deck, but the desired upper deck is lined with chairs and also has benches along the sides and is open to the beautiful city views. Luckily though, the crowd was much smaller than it appeared and my dad and I scored great bench seating near the front of the boat. 
I was so happy! See! What a cute pic!The tour was amazing, taking us right next to and beneath some of the oldest buildings, the most famous buildings aka the Sears Tower,
and the newest buildings, including the unfinished Trump Tower. 
I don’t know if I have a favorite building on the tour, it was all cool. I just love cityscapes! I was, of course, being the ultimate tourist and while everyone else was listening to the tour guide recite lots of interesting facts about each structure we passed,
I was constantly snapping photos. I think I might be an addict now, constantly clicking the button on the camera, and I’m not looking forward to the withdrawal I might have to endure once this trip is over. But fortunately I don’t have to worry about that just yet!Here are several photos from the ride! Enjoy!
Check out this cool parking structure at the base of a condo tower - it's been featured in several films and commercials. 
It's pretty amazing to see in person, but I wouldn't want to park in it because I'd be afraid I'd drive my car right off it, a recurring incident in those aforementioned ads and films!After the boat ride, we checked out of the hotel and began the drive to our next destination: St. Louis. I looked at the map and noticed that we were going to drive right past Lincoln’s home in Springfield, IL, so we decided to take a short detour off the main highway to check it out. Unfortunately, there was some kind of street fair going on and the streets we needed to take to get to the house were all closed, which was a bummer. Not wanting to go away empty handed, we found a statue of Lincoln and snapped a quick photo in front of it, which might be better than just a photo of an old house anyway! 
While in town, we decided we might as well grab dinner too so we stopped at Bennigan’s, which was fine, but not the best meal we’d ever had. In fact, Springfield left a lot to be desired so we probably won’t be passing through there again if we can help it, no offense Abe!
Interestingly, however, just as we were driving as fast as the speed limit would allow back to the highway and away from Springfield, we looked to our right and did a double take at what we saw shining back at us - the brightest and most complete rainbow I've ever seen in my entire life!
It was also the most well defined in terms of color I've ever seen as well. I think it might just have made the crazy detour to this town totally worthwhile! I look at the pictures now and am so impressed at how much of the bright colors we were able to capture with our cameras. They still don't do the real thing justice, but they'll have to do for the rest of you!
While in town, we decided we might as well grab dinner too so we stopped at Bennigan’s, which was fine, but not the best meal we’d ever had. In fact, Springfield left a lot to be desired so we probably won’t be passing through there again if we can help it, no offense Abe!Interestingly, however, just as we were driving as fast as the speed limit would allow back to the highway and away from Springfield, we looked to our right and did a double take at what we saw shining back at us - the brightest and most complete rainbow I've ever seen in my entire life!
It was also the most well defined in terms of color I've ever seen as well. I think it might just have made the crazy detour to this town totally worthwhile! I look at the pictures now and am so impressed at how much of the bright colors we were able to capture with our cameras. They still don't do the real thing justice, but they'll have to do for the rest of you!
A better stop along the way was a random rest stop we pulled off at to switch drivers. It turned out that we were at another Route 66 intersection with the main highway. It’s amazing how many times I’ve crossed paths with Route 66 on this road trip given the unconventional path I’ve taken, mostly away from Route 66’s original path. I love that I keep finding it, although that will probably be the last time until the return trip, should I make one, since Route 66 goes from Los Angeles to Chicago and I’m past there now. What’s really cool is that I took a photo of Route 66 signs that I randomly found near LA on my first day and now I have a photo near the other end of the old road in Illinois. What’s better yet is that neither find was planned, it was all random, and those tend to be the most interesting and fun moments of the trip!
Well, that’s pretty much it for Saturday. It was Dad’s last full day on the trip with me, which is a bummer, but I guess it’s time for me to be back on my own, riding solo on the open road. But first, my Dad and I have a little more fun planned for tomorrow morning when we visit the St. Louis Arch!
Then I remembered I was afraid of heights! So I decided I'd better lay down and catch my breath, but that wasn't much better! 
If you go to the Observation Deck at the Hancock Building, just enjoy being a tourist and don't offer to wash the windows, trust me!
Riding the L was something I wanted to do partially because of all the episodes of ER I've watched over the years in which the characters constantly referred to and even went on location to ride the L in Chicago on occasion. I know, it's wierd, but it's my road trip and that's what I wanted to do, plus it's really the easiest way to get to Wrigley Field, so we probably would have ridden it regardless, but it's more fun that it has a unique meaning for me other than it being the best means of transportation! However, because it's the best way to get to Wrigley Field, it was packed tighter than a can of sardines and it was hot as hell in that little train car, which made for a painfully long ride to the game, but we made it and as usual it was worth it! 
It is one of the main streets downtown and has such a fun atmosphere. It is within walking distance from most places, including our great hotel, The Allerton, to the many shops along the street, the Hancock Building and both Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, which runs from the lake through the city. With the exception of the small and slow elevators and slow valet/baggage services, the Allerton was a great hotel with the perfect location and recommend it to all of you - just remember, it's downtown Chicago, so it's a little on the expensive side, but totally worth it! Plus, it's a historic old building, which makes it kind of unique too.
It has so much history and is one of the very few remaining ballparks that dates back to the early years of baseball! It even still has a manual scoreboard! I'm glad I got to experience it at least once before they someday tear it down. It's much smaller than most ballparks with only two decks of seats so even though we were in the upper deck, we were actually a lot closer than we normally would be. We had a somewhat obstructed view of right field due to a pillar, but had a perfect view of the diamond looking up the third base line and we were under the shade awning, so we stayed cool and out of the sun. 
We stayed until just after the 7th inning stretch, during which actor, comedian, and Chicago native Jeff Garlin sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which was a fun surprise and a cool Hollywood sighting on the trip! 
We left early because we wanted to avoid the sardine situation on the L train and we did, thankfully! Unfortunately, we left when the score was still 0-0, which meant we pretty much missed all the action in the game, but we found out later that the Cubs won and since they weren't playing the Padres, we were glad to hear it!
We missed the boat rides, but the weather was still wonderful so we walked around and looked up at all the tall buildings and just enjoyed Chicago for a bit.
Maggie McDowell is bound to be a Broadway star someday, so remember the name!
Can I just tell you that whoever invented the timer on cameras is a genius! Seriously, one of the greatest inventions, I couldn't have documented this trip very well without it!
But we weren't going to drive by and miss such a cool place just because of a little rain! Baseball players play in the rain, so this was just a more authentic experience than most visitors get! 
I had a lot of fun dodging the puddles and getting a little rain-soaked to run the bases like a little kid, even managing to improvise by hitting a rock with my umbrella, which amazingly enough led to an inside the park homerun, go figure! 
It even stopped raining and cleared up a bit for a few last pictures before we left, so I was very glad we didn't let a little rain cause us to miss out on yet another unique road trip experience!
Another cool sight we found on the map just off the highway before arriving in Chicago was the first and original McDonald's restaurant built in 1955. Unfortunately, the rain put us a bit behind schedule so we were lating in getting to the city and the McDonald's historical site keeps very short hours, closing at 2:30pm, so we didn't get to go inside, but we saw it, we were there, and we got some cool pictures to add to the ever-growing Snapfish collection! 
Finally, we arrived in downtown Chicago just in time for rush hour traffic, which would have been good since it allowed me plenty of time to take pictures except it was still raining pretty hard to most of the pictures didn't even come out very well, which was a bummer. 
And the rain made me a bit grumpy as I came to see Chicago, a lot of which requires being outside and probably aren't fun activities in the rain, such as a baseball game at Wrigley field tomorrow, Navy Pier, an architectural boat tour, wandering around Milennium Park, etc. But my dad is being very understanding about my moods and is doing a great job of keeping my spirits high and reminding me why I'm taking this journey. Sometimes, the journey doesn't go the way I'd like and I have to go with the flow and make the most of the situation because I might not ever be in these places again.
Our timing was perfect yet again as we were able to walk the full length of the fairly long pier in windy, but rain-free conditions. Once we got to the end of the pier we looked north and couldn't believe how dark, almost black the sky had gotten once again. 
Another storm was clearly headed our way so we snapped a few pictures of the scary sky because it was so amazing we wanted to be able to remember it as we don't see that color sky very often in sunny California and then immediately started heading back toward the beginning of the pier. We made it about 1/3 of the way back when the skies opened and drenched us before we could run for the shelter of the interior buildings on the pier. 
We quickly detoured to a souvenier shop for my trademark shot glass and then took the free trolley back toward our hotel. We stopped at a TGI Friday's for dinner - I know, not very Chicago-esque but all the cool places on the pier had hour waits or longer and we were wet and hungry and just wanted a good meal and I think we made the right choice. Plus, I got a great, yummy drink called the Ultimate June Bug, which hit the spot after this long, wet day!
Tomorrow, rain or shine, we're headed to a Chicago Cubs baseball game at Wrigley field. I hope that even if the game gets rained out that they'll let us in just so I can go check out the historic stadium! I'm keeping my fingers crossed, please do the same for me!
It's incredible! And actually, the sign is somewhat inaccurate for my trip because I've actually traveled over 3,000 miles total because of the wierd, somewhat zig-zag route I've taken so far, and there's still quite a bit of miles to cover before I reach the Atlantic! Amazing!
Although, not horror scary, like that film "Children of the Corn," at least I don't think so having never seen the movie before.
It's definitely one of those "corny" tourist traps and, in fact, the original was actually built in 1892 because the town officials wanted to put Mitchell on the map as a desirable destination. It was also built to prove Lewis and Clark wrong as they originally thought the land in this part of the country would not be suitable for growing crops and so the town built a palace made entirely of corn to celebrate their successful harvest. While the town is still pretty small, there were quite a few people besides us checking out the Corn Palace, which has the unique draw of being made out of corn as well as free admission, but stays in business because people like me just can't resist buying some sort of souvenier from the "World's Only Corn Palace!" Who can resist that? Obviously not me as I now have yet another shot glass to add to my quickly growing collection!
The visitor brochure described them as "corn by number" art since the local artists use 11 different colored corn to create the many images, featuring a different theme each year. They were still working on completing some of the murals today, painstakingly nailing each ear of corn to the outer wall of the building, turning ears of corn into art right before our eyes! 
I thought they were pretty cool! There was even one inside the palace of Mount Rushmore, which was amusing since I was just at the real thing yesterday, and while the corn version was a good artistic representation, I still think the real thing is much more impressive and will accept no substitutes, even those made entirely of corn! 
Anyway, I think my dad and I are very lucky to have been able to visit such a unique place, especially since it's the only one like it in the world! We may be corny, but we had fun! 
The "corny" theme of the day continued in another interesting way this afternoon. We were just driving along I-90 in Minnesota, minding our own business and commenting on the unique name of the town Blue Earth that we saw on a highway sign when we read the next sign about the Jolly Green Giant Statue which just so happened to be the trademark of Blue Earth! We had nowhere to go the rest of the day except for our hotel so we weren't in a hurry and these random roadside attractions are just the kinds of things I wanted to see along the way in addition to the major sights, so we couldn't resist pulling off the highway to check him out! 
He sure was tall, I only came up to the top of his boots! He's definitely been eating his vegetables, especially lots of corn I imagine since it seems to be the most popular crop around! And he wasn't all alone out there in the corn fields. He had some friends nearby and my Dad didn't want to ignore them just because they weren't quite as tall or green as the Giant so he went over and introduced himself.
Isn't this a great photo? I love it! So much so that I decided to make a new friend of my own. 
Isn't he cute?
And we had just enough of that good old Irish luck to last us the few hours we were at the monument, yay!
George Washington 
Thomas Jefferson 
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
I just think these guys are so awesome! I mean, I kept staring up at them and wondering how those sculptors hanging from ropes on that mountain would know where to chisel out a nose or an eye and how they could tell the detail they were adding from so close up on a sculpture so large, especially without any technological assistance like we would have today. 
Mount Rushmore is an incredible engineering feat, to me much more impressive than the amazing Hoover Dam, no offense to President Hoover! Too bad he can't be part of Mount Rushmore somehow, too. I tried to be part of it, but I think it looks better with the four guys up there already. Adding more would make it a bit too crowded and potentially risk damaging the original masterpiece, so I guess I'll just have to settle for this photograph instead. 
Rapid City, the closest major metropolis to Mount Rushmore, takes it's place in the country's political history very seriously and has placed bronze statues of the nation's most important president's on the street corners of downtown. I just had to have my picture taken with our 13th President Zachary Taylor. Why, you ask? You probably didn't even know we had a president named Zachary Taylor, did you? Well, to be honest, neither would I except for the fact that we are connected. No, not related, but we do share a birthday exactly 200 years apart, November 24, 1784 and 1984. I remember reading that fact once on one of those "On this day in history" birthday cards and it stuck with me because I thought it was kind of cool. So here we are!
That pretty much covers the excitement for the day as our Irish luck ran out after our visit with good ole Zach. We passed through quite a big thunderstorm, the likes of which I'd never really driven in, so I made my dad take over for a while. This allowed me to take cool pictures of the scenery, well the unique rain patterns on the window anyway, 
and catch up on a few postcards. If anyone would like a postcard, get in touch with me and give me your address and I'll make sure to send one out to you.
The Wall Drug opened in 1931 and has since grown to 65,000 square feet of cheesy souveneirs, soda fountains, and ice cream shops. It is basically the epitome of tourist traps in America, but it was in a great location to grab some ice cream and wait out the rain. Plus, it was amusing to wander from room to room and purchase a few souveneirs ourselves. What can I say, we couldn't resist the mystical power of the tourist trap! And the people there were just so friendly!