Today's photos
We decided to have a lazy day today so headed down into Grant Park to watch the end of the triathlon that was taking place there in the lakefront, although we had been down here the other day we hadn't walked the main part it. It was quite rough on Lake Michigan today and not that warm so we only followed it for about a mile then cut through into Millennium Park and then headed on over the BP bridge.
This is an odd looking bridge that spans a major road is made out of stainless steel that winds it's self around before you cross the road, as the sun had come out it was getting hot to touch it in some parts. Once off the other side, you are in Millennium Park where there is a large outdoor theatre. Just round the corner from here was an outdoor photographic display of local scenery by local people and interesting to look at. Although they are on display day and night and you can walk around at any time nobody had damaged or vandalized any of them.
From there we headed along Michigan Avenue until we can to the Chicago River. This area of the city was raised many years ago so it's a bit of a climb down some steps, I didn't realize that we could have used a slope if we had gone a bit further up.
There are several lifting bridges that cross the river and one of them also carries trains and although there wasn't any bridge lifts planned for when was here there is the McCormick Bridge house museum at the base of one of them. It's free entry on a Sunday so that was interesting see how the gears and mechanism works that lift the bridges. Your free to wander around inside from the gear room then climb up the stairs of the tower which has information boards on the way up on why this part of the city was raised more than 20 feet and how they managed to reverse the flow of the river via a lock so Lake Michigan flowed through the city to bring in clean water. Eventually, you passed the level of the road until you get to the top about 20 feet above the road where you can look out the windows.
After spending some time strolling along the river bank we got something to eat enough headed back to the hotel for an hour or so before going out to get some food from China Doll Chinese takeaway around the corner. You get your chicken fried rice in what looks like a milk carton but there was far too much for both of us. I think it only came to about $6 with large fries as well, you certainly got value for money here.
