Chicago

Where do I begin with Chicago, IL?  I am sitting here, back in the beautiful rural confines of Kankakee, looking back at our day in the city.  I won't say that I hated it, but it is definitely not one of my top places to see.  We left mid-morning and set out north for what we were thinking was a great day to come.  The drive up was much faster than I thought, you can really fly without the great Jayco anchor in tow. 
We hit Shoreline drive and went looking for a place to park.  First mistake.  Try and have some idea of where you are parking before heading into downtown Chicago.  Missed the turn into the "millennium park" garage and it was on.  That started a frustrating drive thru narrow residential streets and culminated in a frenzy of activity in downtown Chicago.  And I mean DOWNTOWN Chicago.  People everywhere!!  Watch where you turn, you might flatten a pedestrian.  They way these people drive was appalling.  I must have seen a dozen near misses.  They would have been near misses for me, but to the locals it might be just another day.  Finally hit the parking garage, it was literally the only place I could see to park.  Nice price, $14 minimum, $29 maximum.  The $14 price was for like the first half hour.  I guess when you own the only parking garage around, you can charge whatever you want.

We parked and headed to Millennium park.  Pretty neat park really.  It had some neat sculptures and fountains but not a bathroom in sight.  We took the tourist pictures and headed over to Navy Pier.  Nice walk, probably took us half and hour to get there.  People everywhere.  Hot, sweaty, angry people everywhere.  We headed out to the end of the pier and took some pictures of Lake Michigan and enjoyed the breeze. 

We did some more walking and decided it was time to head out.  I didn't really want to fight the traffic anymore so it was time to head back to the country. 
CRAP!!!!  TONS of traffic heading out of town.  It takes ten times as long to get out of the hell-hole as it does to get in.  Nice trap.  Anyway, we will gladly scratch the great city of Chicago off of out list, probably never to return.