Above photo
taken from the
Hancock Center.
At 1,127 feet, it
is the 4th tallest
building in
Chicago and
8th tallest in
the U.S.
98
foundation into bedrock and super high strength
steel they created a building 20 times taller than
its base!
Back at our hotel, The Silversmith, we caught
up with our friends, had some lunch and
wondered over to the Millennium Park which was
just a few block away from our hotel. We viewed
the closed-for-the-season Jay Pritzker Pavilion
and wondered about in and out of the mysterious
Cloud Gate, better know as the “Bean.” The
sculpture is intriguing and disorienting, especially
in the inside where the reflections mess with your
mind. We then ventured down to the Crowd
Fountain, the water was turned off for the season
but the 40-foot-tall faces were still on.
That evening we went to a cool jazz club
restaurant called Bandera, right in the middle
of the Michigan Avenue Miracle Mile shopping
district. The music was good and mellow, and the
food lived up to its reputation. We tested their
legendary rotisserie chicken and skillet cornbread.
Both were excellent.
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
We woke up Saturday morning to rain. It
was raining hard, so we opted for some indoor
activities. Luckily our friend from Ohio, Kathy,
had a wealth of knowledge and had done some
extensive research on Chicago. We were fortunate
also to be in town for “Open House Chicago,” a free
behind-the-scenes access to over 200 buildings in
Chicago. We had no intention of trying to make all
200 and the rain made it too difficult to even get to
the several we had hoped to visit. We particularly
enjoyed the restored Monroe Building with its
beautiful lobbies and elevators and Pritzker Military
Museum. From there we headed to the Art Institute
Chicago, a not so free stop! This place is numbing
—so many displays, exhibits and galleries. One
could get lost in here and I thought I did several
times! There are four levels, multiple buildings
and about 30 different collections. I was especially
impressed with Chagall’s American Windows and
the Impressionists Gallery. We could have spent a
week there and not seen everything.
As our eyes were starting to gloss over in an
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
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