Chicago, IL | Day 2

We began our second day in Chicago with a visit to Stan’s Donuts, which I was really excited to try! While I wouldn’t consider donuts to be a favorite of mine, give me a specialty donut shop (even better if they serve mini-donuts!) and I’m a happy girl. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a hit for us. My mom found her donut too bready and while my donut was good, it was also a little dry and almost tasted like those little Hostess chocolate donuts you can get at the grocery store, lolz. Oh well. At least we had fun plans in store for us today: a visit to Navy Pier and 360 Chicago!

We arrived at Navy Pier around 10:30, only to find out that they don’t really get going until 11. Oops – just means we had time to stroll around the pier and take in all the sights! We bought tickets to ride the Centennial Wheel, which is what I wanted to do the most here. And it was well worth the wait! Apparently, in pre-COVID times, you had to share one of the gondolas with other people, but not right now! I was very happy that we had a gondola to ourselves, COVID or not. (Listen, as a shy person with social anxiety, some COVID procedures vastly benefit my life.) The gondola was fully enclosed and air-conditioned, which was really nice. We got to do three loops around and see all of Chicago. It was amazing! I highly recommend a visit to Navy Pier just for this experience.

We ended up doing the Wheel for a second time because we loved it just that much.

Afterwards, we wandered around the pier to find something to eat and stumbled on Harry Caray’s Tavern where we ordered some drinks (I couldn’t pass up a frozen drink! It reminded me of being on a cruise ship!) and lunch. My mom had her first Chicago dog experience and she was super happy with it! I ordered a burger and it was fine—nothing to write home about. (Should’ve gotten the Chicago dog, I think!)

We had some time to kill before our reservation at 360 Chicago so we walked around the pier and stumbled on an indoor pavilion with lots of kitschy shops. This is where I picked up one of my only Chicago souvenir of the trip, which was a magnet. I love it and it makes me smile every time I see it. We also found a bakery and got a cupcake to share, but eh, it wasn’t very good. We should have opted for Ben & Jerry’s! Live and learn.

Then it was time to order a Lyft and head over to 360 Chicago! I was super, super excited about this excursion. Here, we took an elevator (thank god) to the 94th floor of the John Hancock building where we got to see incredible views of Chicago. It was truly magnificent! It was hard to believe we were so high up (we don’t have buildings like this where I live, that’s for sure) and could see so many miles of the city.

(I wore a mask while inside the building, but took it off for this photo since there was nobody else around me.)

We also took part in TILT, which is a “ride” in which you stand on a glass box, hold on to handlebars located at both ends of the box, and then try not to freak out when the glass wall in front of you starts to tilt down onto the city! Y’all, IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. It tilts down about 30 degrees and was such an insanely cool experience. I was nervous about it because when we were waiting for our turn, there was a couple in the Tilt ride and the male participant couldn’t handle it! He kept stepping back because it freaked him out so much. But it really wasn’t bad at all! (Zip-lining is much scarier, lol.)

After enjoying TILT and taking two spins around the observation deck, Mom and I got a drink and relaxed in comfy chairs, sipping while enjoying the view. Ahh… I love vacation. 🙂

We took a Lyft back to the hotel afterward and then it was time for our daily nap! Yessss.

Tuesday evening, we ventured out for pizza! Both of us are pretty darn picky about our pizza, especially when it comes to crust. We certainly didn’t have plans to try deep-dish pizza because ick. I’m very happy for you if you love deep-dish pizza, but it’s just not for us. Thankfully, most of the famous Chicago pizza places offer thin-crust pizza alongside deep dish, so we were able to get some pizza anyway! We decided on Giordano’s, mostly because it was the closest pizza place to our hotel and we weren’t feeling up to too long a jaunt for dinner.

Verdict? It was okay. It wasn’t outstanding, but we both easily polished off a small pizza between the two of us. The weirdest thing about the pizza was that the cheese just slid right off the slice! No staying power here. I haven’t encountered that before. All in all, it was fine but nothing to write home about, you know?

After that, it was back to the hotel for a few rounds of Qwixx before we took to our respective beds to read our books. 🙂 Tomorrow was going to be another busy day but this time, I let us sleep in!