Chicago, IL | Days 3 & 4

Oh man, I had hoped to write and publish this post last week, but it ended up being a much bigger undertaking than I expected and work has been insanely busy, leaving me very little free time to focus on blogging. Alas, I had the weekend to get this done so here’s my last Chicago recap!

Our third day in Chicago (Wednesday) was a fun one, but it was also the day we had the scariest Lyft drive of my life. We’ll get into it!

We slept in on Wednesday, something my mom was very grateful for. We had a noon reservation at the Shedd Aquarium so we didn’t have to get going until around 11 or so, which was really nice. I didn’t think I was going to sleep late (I set an alarm for 9:30), but I wound up needing that alarm. I guess I was tired!

We started our day by checking out Wildberry Cafe. I already had it on my list to try, but when my mom posted about our trip on Facebook, one of our family members told us to go there! So we definitely had to make it happen. There was a Wildberry within walking distance of our hotel and we were seated nearly immediately, but damn, they were not following any COVID procedures here, let me tell you. None of the servers wore masks and they seated us within 3 feet or less of other patrons. Eeks!

Even so, Wildberry was a delicious breakfast spot! Mom and I shared a plate of chocolate chip pancakes and I also got a side of eggs and bacon. We planned on having a big breakfast and skipping lunch, so I knew I needed something that would keep me satisfied for hours. It was such a great breakfast, and I am still dreaming about those pancakes. Mmm!

We got to Shedd right around noon and spent about two hours walking around this sensational aquarium. It was the one thing my mom wanted to do while in Chicago, and I’m so glad we went. The aquarium is filled with tons of little exhibits with fish and eels and sharks and turtles and penguins, oh my! (Somehow we missed the penguin exhibit, which I am very sad about.) They also have an oceanarium where you can watch beluga whales and dolphins swimming around. Apparently, they also have sea otters but they weren’t around on the day we went, wah.

One of the more disturbing experiences at Shedd was watching a shark documentary, which came with our ticket. There were some cool tidbits in the documentary (like epaulet sharks who can breathe and walk on land for a period of time) but there was also a lot of information about how sharks entice their prey that was hard to stomach. Let’s just say there was a scene involving seals happily playing while a great white shark hunted them that would have scarred me for life if I watched this documentary as a child. Even as an adult, I hid my eyes behind my hands during that scene!

Aside from that disturbing documentary, we had a great time at Shedd! We probably could have spent more time there but we wanted to hit up the Field Museum, which closed at 5pm, so we left a little after 2.

The Field Museum was great, but I should have done my due diligence beforehand and figured out which exhibits to check out because we missed so many great ones! (Including Sue the T.Rex, wah!) Some of the exhibits were interactive, which was fun, and our ticket came with the option to watch a short documentary about Titanosaurs, which is the largest dinosaur to ever roam the Earth. It was a pretty cool documentary! (Much better than watching sharks hunt seals, for sure.) We strolled through a few exhibits afterward and I found one about African culture particularly powerful.

We left the Field Museum around 4:30 and I ordered a Lyft to take us to a local bookstore. It was the first time I’ve ever been in a Lyft and felt uncomfortable with the driver. He wasn’t doing anything particularly problematic, but he seemed to be driving us in circles to get to the bookstore. What should have been a 10-minute drive ended up being double that! I was following along in the app and he kept going straight when he needed to go left, or turning right when he needed to go straight. I’ve had drivers not follow the GPS directions before, and that’s fine as long as I see a logical path to get to my destination. This driver was just going in circles (almost as if he was trying to earn more money by driving around longer). I started feeling really scared, unsure if he would ever get us to our destination. Multiple times I wanted to just get out of the car. Eventually, we made it to the bookstore and the driver gave me a line that his GPS not working correctly (I was sitting behind him so I couldn’t see his GPS, but I don’t buy that excuse one bit). I was pretty upset with the Lyft app, though, because they typically will send an alert when a ride is taking too long or the driver is going off their GPS, but they didn’t send me anything until AFTER it was over. Not very helpful, Lyft! (I did send a complaint, though.)

But we made it to the bookstore at least?! After-Words Bookstore has an eclectic collection of both new and used books, and it was a cute little shop with the ground floor filled with children’s books and a downstairs section for adult books. I was feeling very unsettled from the Lyft ride and didn’t feel like I could peruse as leisurely as I wanted to. I did end up settling on two books to bring home with me (I bought The Most Fun We Ever Had because Claire Lombardo is a local author!); I love buying books that remind me of my travels in some small way.

After our short trip to After-Words, we were ready for an early dinner. I wanted to visit Shake Shack at least once while we were in Chicago since I’d never been. We found one within walking distance of the bookstore, yay!

For me, Shake Shack was a bit underwhelming! It wasn’t bad—I liked my burger more than I liked the fries—but it wasn’t so good that I left the restaurant bereft that the only location near me is 20 minutes away. Give me BurgerFi any day! Mmm. (My mom ordered their beer and she really enjoyed it!)

And that was Wednesday! We walked back to the hotel, enjoyed an episode of Big Brother, played some games of Qwixx, and then packed up our room a bit since we would be flying back home tomorrow. But we had one more adventure to enjoy!

On Thursday morning, we were up and at ’em early as we had a 9 a.m. reservation at Skydeck Chicago, which is located in the Willis Tower. We traveled up 103 floors to see gorgeous views of the city. At this observation tower, they had The Ledge, which is a glass box that extends out a few feet from the building so it feels like you are standing right on top of the city. It’s pretty cool, but I got a lot of comments from people about how scary it looked when I posted the photos/video on Instagram. I’m not someone who’s scared of heights (I’ve ziplined multiple times and grew up on roller coasters, lol) so it was mostly an insanely cool experience rather than a scary one. I can definitely understand that it’s not for everyone! But it was so worth it to me.

We took a few loops around Skydeck since it wasn’t very busy and we had the time. I’m really glad we squeezed in this one last Chicago adventure before heading to the airport.

I had such a good time in Chicago and I’m so glad we made this trip happen, even though the Delta variant is surging. (I took a COVID test when I got back and it was negative, thank goodness!) It was a good time with my mom and I desperately needed the time away from work and life to enjoy an honest-to-God vacation, something I haven’t had in almost two years at this point! It was everything I hoped it would be, and I can’t wait to return to Chicago soon. This city has carved out a special place in my heart.