The next day we signed up for the Architecture boat tour along the Chicago River. It was basically a boat ride along the river with a tour guide that gives you an explanation of many of the buildings along with information on the architects that created them. Chicago goes way back and many of the buildings that were built there were designed by architects from all over the world. It was a beautiful day for a boat ride and our…
We got back from our trips and God forbid I give Jamie a chance to rest. Nope, we headed straight to Chicago to stay in a hotel there for 3 nights to explore the city. Can’t believe she hasn’t shot me yet. She’s such a trooper. Anyway, the first day we just walked around and explored the area we were staying in, which was a perfect location right downtown. We walked to a shopping district called the Magnificent Mile and…
We were heading home Thursday morning when we passed the Miller brewery. We had no plans on going there but when we drove by it looked like kind of a neat place so we decided to stop in. While Jamie was browsing the gift shop, big surprise, I looked into the tours and discovered there was one leaving shortly. We really had nowhere to be so we decided to do it. Frederick Miller started the company in 1855. Some unique…
The next day we had some museums to hit. I’m breaking this day into two posts because there are quite a few pictures. The first stop was the Pabst mansion. Home of Frederick Pabst, original owner of the Pabst brewing company, and his family. The home was built in 1893 and the family lived there until 1908, just a few years after his death. His wife died not long after and his children were all established in their own homes…
We left St. Louis for Chicago and Great Lakes Naval air station, which is about 45 minutes north of Chicago. Amazingly that campground was about as close to Chicago as we could find. Once again we found ourselves in the front row right on Lake Michigan. And once again it’s been raining. Not as bad as Missouri but we are still getting flood warnings. This time, though, I’m not concerned about the lake reaching our site. There’s a nice rock…
The next day we went to visit the arch and zoo. Jim had obviously been in the arch but it was Jamie’s first time. It can be a little scary because you cram into a little car that carries you to the top but Jamie had no problem with it. It’s a beautiful view from the top and an engineering marvel so we enjoyed that. It was built to remember the people that traveled west for new opportunities so they…
We had a beautiful week in Kauai while the lousy weather continued in Missouri. We got back on May 9 and 2 days later we were out of there having had enough of rain and tornadoes. Next stop was St. Louis. There really isn’t a whole lot to do there except for the arch, which is kind of neat, but Jim did go to college there so it was a trip down memory lane for him. Unfortunately, the campus Jim…
The afternoon was spent at the Top of the Rock museum. Apparently, Johnny Morris, the owner of Bass Pro and owner of this property is very big into collecting bits of history and he’s taken this to a level that rivals any big museum with virtually unlimited funds. He’s also into preserving the land and native American history. He even has lockets of hair from presidents Washington and Lincoln! Most of the pictures require some explanation so I either took…
May 1 turned out to be an interesting day. I’m breaking this day into two posts because the second half of the day was so unique I have too many pictures to include it with our morning pictures. I’ll get to what made the day so interesting in the second post. We spent the entire day at Top of the Rock golf resort exploring the many other things the resort had to offer. We started with what they call their…