Canyons and Canals

You don’t think about canyons when you think Illinois. We visited Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. There’s a legend that a group of Native Americans were trapped here by enemies and eventually starved. The park is full of different canyons and lots of boardwalks.

I love this picture. Somehow I am glowing and almost translucent. I guess my secret is out!

Nearby was the Illinois Waterway Visitor Center.

Sunrise, Sunset, and UFO’s

These pictures are in honor of the movie Independence Day. I’d tell you the story about the UFO’s in the first picture, but I’m not. The evening was pretty fantastic. The clouds were bizarre and we saw some of the biggest lightning patterns across the sky that I’ve ever seen.

We’re staying in a county park called Ledge Park in Wisconsin. Sunset is gorgeous along the top of the cliffs.

I was geocaching at the local cemetery in the morning.

Morning view along the road in Wisconsin.

Chicago

I had a 2-day meeting in Chicago. There aren’t any RV parks in Chicago, but we found an RV campground that was close to a train station. It was fun to take the train into Chicago. Did you know they slow the train when it is over 95 F since the rails move in the heat? Chicago trains are double-deckers. FYI, you put your ticket in a clip in front of you so the conductor sees it as he goes past.

I’m not sure why, but I had to walk almost a mile to change trains in Chicago. The good part is that this was in downtown Chicago. It gave me a chance to sightsee. A museum at the Federal Reserve was excellent. I got to see $1,000,000 in one-dollar bills and in $100 dollar bills.

Willis Tower (15th tallest building in the world) had a long line of people to go to the top (Skydeck).

I saw the Chicago Stock Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, Rookery Building, the theatre district, Chicago Tribune and the Loop

Millennium Park was full of people on a hot Friday. Kids and adults were everywhere!Crown Fountain has two towers with changing videos of faces. Every once in a while the face “spits” water. 

Officially it’s called Cloud Gate, but everyone calls it the Bean. A very fun touristy thing to do. Lots of people taking pictures!

For a good time, the fire alarm went off at 5:30 am at the hotel. Everyone had to go to the stairs (I was on the 10^th floor) and walk down to the bottom. I’m not sure what happened, but the line stopped when I got to the 4^th floor. We were there for quite a while with no one telling us anything. At one point, a woman passed us going down. One of the ladies waiting in line said “Saving yourself?” Not sure if she was too good to stand in line or claustrophobic. Finally we were told to climb the stairs back to our floors since it was a false alarm and the elevators were shut down. I was mentioning it was great to do steps in the morning when another lady stopped and said “You are the most morning person I ever met!”