Day 98 Chicago
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
106
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Chicago,
Illinois,
United States
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
We were up early 6:15am to ensure we could find the rail station and climb aboard the train in ample time to enjoy our "Day trip to Chicago"
It was a short 20-25 min drive through small farm lots and we arrived at the small town of Woodstock, a trip around the block to ascertain a parking spot and found a park free all day (max 24hours) and walked to the station.
There was around 20 mins wait time for the train, no ticketing machine and no station attendant, Earnie asked a couple of guys about the tickets and it was "You get them on the train, or get them at the next station" .The train arrived on time, we hopped on and found seats. There was an "upper level of seating, but it was not a full floor, it had seating either side with a railing either side and a gap in the middle. Really interesting concept and a little puzzling for the Aussie travellers.
The train got away and a conductor turns up asking for tickets, if you haven't a ticket he sells you one, if you have a ticket they have little clip holders on the seat you clip your ticket into and the conductor is able to check it and punch the required holes.
Also at this point the gap and vision to the upper lever passengers became clear, the conductor can look up and check their tickets or sell to them as well, the metal clips to hold the tickets is on the ledge just above the conductors head.
The trip in was all station stops but it was relaxing and comfortable, we arrived in Chicago at around 9:25am. Gee first stop a coffee and tea, not as simple as it sounds, Earnie and Karon went for the Tea at Macca's, obviously a bored server and a communication challenge, Earnie received a tea bag and no hot water or any other stuff. Karon ordered the coffee and tea and received the hot water and the tea and had to request Earnie's tea again. Just the "expectation" the serving staff have of us understanding the rapid request for "what size, etc" creates a challenge we at times find a little frustrating. We guess 99.9% of their customers understand what they are saying or know what they want, just the poor Aussie travellers struggle at times.
We head out of the station area and ask a security guard about the "free Trolley" system we had been previously been advised about, he was helpful and pointed us in the right direction.
The trolley system works in a colour coded Trolley for different areas, A red circle trolley, a Green Triangle Trolley, a yellow Star and a blue square.
Yes it is free and if you have a map you hop on the particular trolley with the coloured symbol to take you in the area you choose to visit, with some stops covering all the main three and the blue ones take in the Navy pier area.
We chose a Yellow Star and hopped on and away we went, looking at the buildings and inner city area with a little bit of narration from the driver explaining the stops and the trolley system.
We chose to hop off at the Navy Pier stop, simply to see what it was about, we found it to be an amusement arcade and an area to enable tourists to take boat cruises on Lake Michigan, as well as some shopping, mainly tourist trap stuff. Also it appeared to have convention centre type area as well as restaurants. It began its life as the Municipal pier, but had a name change to "The Navy Pier, " after World War 1, the name change was in honour of the servicemen for the Mid west that had lost their lives in the conflict.
The pier gave us a great look back onto the skyline of Chicago as well as an idea how big the city was and the distance it stretched. We made our way back to the trolley stop to head downtown again, this time our aim was to explore the Sears building, presently the highest building in the Americas and at one time until around 1996 held the tallest building in the world status.
The security into this famous building was tight, but we guess we should expect that type of stuff to happen, if we keep in mind 9/11. We had a 10 minute video introduction to the Sears towers and history, then onto the elevator to the 103rd floor in around 1.5 minutes.
The view of the city (fortunately we had a clear day) was great, the audio explanation of the views was informative, it gave the history about the Great Chicago fire and also pointed out the landmark buildings and sights in the 360 degree view. The inside of the walk around had a display of the City's history as well as lists of some of the well know people that have either come from Chicago or made their name in the city, as well as a list of some big movies shot in or around the area, from Charlie Chaplain forward.
Great and informative, and well worth the entry cost to have the option to take in the sights.
We found our way down to street level and decided it was time to eat, we found an eating place inside the Sears Building and again learnt another lesson about ordering food, Don't order a Fanta, the girl behind the counter had NO IDEA what we were talking about, until we suggested paying for a "soda" Her comment to us was, "I don't know the types they sell I only know it soda" (we are not sure how many hours a day nor how many days a week, but it must be difficult to know that they have 5 different flavour sodas we guess!) All in the experience for the Travellers! We do get some funny things to chat over at times!
Well by this stage we had decided it was time to take the Green Triangle tour, out we go and find a trolley stop, waiting in line (hoping it is the correct one, and the first couple of trolleys come and go and then the green one, we pile on and get taken to the next stop where there is a change over of the driver, the new driver hops on and we move around 2 metres and stop, he is fiddling around, opens the door and asks for some help from the other drivers, (mmm not a good sign) One of the other drivers hops on and fiddles around and then suggests the brake is locked on, a bit more to and fro and yee haa we are away. We pull over at the next stop and we are then locked up again, by this time the Chicago weather had decided to drop a little moisture to the ground, a light drizzle!. We are told to all hop off and wait for the next trolley. More confusion as the understanding dawned on all the passengers, this trolley was not going anywhere!
Off we get under a bit of shelter in the sidewalk, waiting along with the other passengers as well as the ones that had already been waiting, around ten minutes the next trolley turned up and a crammed up group of people attempt to flood the door to climb on, the driver attempted to get some sense into the proceedings and lost the battle, but we managed to get a seat and some had to wait.
This trolley took us to the area of the city of the museums and universities, The driver attempted to tell us we couldn't stay on and go all the way around and we had to choose one of the three museums to go visit, most took heed of him except of course the Aussie Travellers and another couple of people that wanted to do the round trip as well. (There is nothing in the brochures or no one else had suggested you couldn't complete a round trip, so we were staying put)
We managed to complete the trip and decided that we had seen enough of Chicago and made our way to the train station to purchase our return tickets, this done, we found our platform and climbed aboard the train, this one completed the return journey a little faster, and we arrived back at or departure point safely, to find the Castle safe and sound waiting for us.
We programmed Mandy to take us to a Wal-Mart and stocked up the food section of the Castle and filled with gas for the move tomorrow.
Home we went and had dinner and watched another movie before retiring to bed.
Interesting to note, even though Chicago is the place of Al Capone and the famous gangster wars in the late 20's the city doesn't appear to recognise the era, maybe to attempt to keep the imageo f the city clean, yet to us it is a part of history and one would consider they would utilize the fame both good and bad of a city, as has happened in some of the Western cowboy towns we have visited.
