Day 5 - Big Tall High Places

Today we entirely blew off the convention in favour of a last day of sightseeing in Chicago. After a leisurely breakfast, during which we tweaked the middle of our trip a little, we headed for Navy Pier.  This turned out to be a very pleasant walk on a warm day even though the weather was pretty overcast. (NB. This comment will become important later - please pay attention).

Rachael with Strawberry Italian Ice before heading for the Ferris Wheel

We had a vague plan of riding on the Ferris Wheel and having a look at all the other things to do.  We headed for the Wheel first and having purchased tickets we queued for an hour to get on it.  Mixed reviews to be honest.  It was fun and we got good views of the city but as it was overcast and the windows of the gondola weren't terribly clean the photos we took were mostly not great. We also shot a little video but not going to put those on the blog just yet.

Me with the Ferris Wheel!

There was a lot of fried dough and ice-cream on offer as we walked the pier but I was completely restrained instead going for some soft drinks and a little "watching the world go by" at one of the cafes. I make no promises that this will last til the end of the trip though. Let's be honest I make no promises that this will last to the end of the week! We have got Frozen Custard coming up on our itinerary after all.

We had booked tickets to go up the Willis tower to the Skydeck for today but thought we would also have a go at the observatory at the John Hancock building which is also supposed to have amazing views of the city.  However the visibility was severely reduced due to clouds at the building top so we abandoned that and headed for the Skydeck instead.

Obey the big orange arrow.

Despite having pre-booked tickets on the internet, the queues were pretty long. We waited about an hour and a half to get the elevator up to the 103rd floor but once there we decided that it was well worth the wait.  The Skydeck has ledges that you can walk out on to so you are surrounded by just glass 103 floors above the street.  I was pretty gung ho about going out on it but actually making your feet move to walk out there is another thing. We did have our picture taken by the official photog but we also managed some of our own feet too.

Don't look down - your feet aren't standing on anything.

Overall the Skydeck was a big hit and Rachael took some lovely photos of the city lighting up as we'd planned our visit for dusk / early evening for this very reason.

Chicago at twilight

After a day full of highs (literally) we headed back to the hotel to examine our mild cases of sunburn (remember the weather being overcast? We forgot sunscreen on a few bits *facepalm*) and to have dinner with lovely fandom friends and do a little celebrating with the London 2014 bid which officially became the host city of Worldcon 2014 this afternoon. Congratulations Loncon 3!

Tonight we pack, for tomorrow morning we head out on the next stage of our epic adventure!

ROUTE 66 HERE WE COME!!!