Here I am again, catching up on my blog which I am really behind on.
Chicago August 23-25, 2013
Since I had gotten tickets to see Shinedown and Papa
Roach at Tinlely Park, in Chicago, I decided we should just make a weekend out
of it. So, Friday afternoon we
headed out of town to get to Tinley Park for concert which started at 5pm. Once we got there, it was a pain in the
butt getting in because I had special tickets that required bracelets and pit
passes. We kept being told to go
to different gates to receive our bracelets, only to get there and then being
told that we were at the wrong gate.
Just when I was about to lose it, we FINALLY found where we needed to be
to get our bracelets and get in. I
bet we ran around for almost an hour trying to find where to go. Anyway, we got in just in time to see
Papa Roach! Yeah!
 |
| I heart Papa Roach! |
Afterwards, we wandered around the
venue since I really didn’t care to see the other bands. Eventually, we made our way back to the
stage to see Shinedown! My favorite band ever!
 |
| I heart Shinedown even more! |
After the concert, we waited around for all of the drunk
people to get out of the way and I roamed around the front of the stage looking
for guitar picks. I cannot tell
you how many times I have successfully found guitar picks after a concert by
the stage because drunk people do not hold on to stuff very well. Anyway, true to form, I found a guitar
pick! Not from Shinedown, but from another group call All That Remains, but I
was still pumped just the same.
After the concert we made our way up into the city. Eventually, after fighting Lower Wacker
for about 30 minutes, we finally found our way to our hotel, The
Swissotel. I had gotten this hotel
thru Travelocity on a super deal, so I was a little worried that it might be a
dump or something, but it was the nicest hotel I have ever been in! As we were checking in, the lady at the
counter informed us that they would be filming Transformers 3 in and around the
hotel over the weekend. She gave
us this letter and said if we were having trouble getting around the filming,
they would help us out.
 |
| View from our room |
The next day, we got up and around for me to drag poor
Gary around the city on a whirlwind tour.
I had researched all these odd things to see in Chicago and I mapped
them out using my phone. We have
both been to Chicago so many times that the last thing that we want to do is go
shopping on Michigan avenue with the other Tourons.
Anyway, on our way to our first stop, we came across
the Fort Dearborn marker. I had no
idea there had been a fort at one time guarding Chicago, but apparently there
had been because there was a marker and a sign.
 |
| Sculpture on the bridge |
 |
| Hey look, here was Fort Dearborn! |
Our next stop was the Eastland disaster. It occurred on the river between
LaSalle and State street. It was
some boat that tipped over, killing many of its passengers. I should have mentioned that most of
the ‘odd’ things I looked up in Chicago are sort-of morbid.
 |
| Site of the Eastland Disaster on the Chicago River |
On that pleasant note, we started heading over to the
State street L station to head north a little bit, when we noticed that it
looked like they were just setting up or tearing down equipment from
filming.
We saw a few people
milling around and we talked to one of the guys. He said that he was with the film crew and that they were
getting ready to film some more scenes.
So, we decided to wait it out so that we could watch them film. It was a little unnerving, but on every
corner for a few blocks there were people standing with backpacks on and ear
pieces. The guy said that they
were crowd control and they just had to stand there and wait for their cue to
hold back people from crossing the street. Eventually, the cops showed up and started redirecting
traffic and blocking the road. It
was so weird to be standing on Wacker Drive and have it be completely
empty! The scene they were filming
just entailed firetrucks driving up and down the road with their lights and
sirens on. This blacked out
vehicle with a camera strapped to the top raced around the emergency vehicles
filming the scene. Even though we
didn’t see any cool explosions or any famous actors, it was still cool to
witness how they orchestrate things in order to film. Also during that time, there was a helicopter that was
flying way low over the city filming as well. After the scene was over, the cops opened up the street
again and everything went back to normal.
 |
| Film crew for Transformers 4 |
 |
| The film crew and camera vehicle |
 |
| Signs along Wacker marking movie location |
 |
| All traffic stopped along Wacker for filming |
After our brush with fame, we hopped on the Red line
and headed North out of town. We
got off near the Gold Coast District.
We passed by a cool farmer’s market, Hugh Hefner’s original playboy
mansion, and the historic wooden alley before we made our way to the
International Museum of Surgical Science.
 |
| Farmer's Market |
 |
| Hugh Hefner's original Playboy Mansion - now a multi-family home I think |
 |
| An Alley, made out of wood! |
If you ever head to Chicago, you have to tour this
museum. They have all this cool
and creepy stuff about medicine, science, diseases and surgeries from the early
days to present times. It’s
totally off the beaten path, in a cool neighborhood right across from the lake
and there are zero crowds. It was
awesome.
 |
| Apothecary shop complete with creepy mannequin |
 |
| An Iron Lung |
 |
| Old Timey eye surgery stuff |
 |
| Surgical instruments.....eeks |
 |
| An early X-Ray machine |
 |
| Ether mask for anesthetic |
After the museum, we headed up Clark on the west side
of Lincoln Park to the location of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. The building no longer exists and there
are no signs, but since I bookmarked it on Google, I knew where the location was
(2122 N. Clark Street). The
massacre was between some of Al Capone’s goons and Bugs Moran’s mobster gang
back in 1929. The story is much
more interesting than the actual sight, but we checked it off our list
regardless!
 |
| Site of the St. Valentines Massacre |
Just up the road from
this sight, is the Biograph Theater where John Dillinger was shot and
killed. He was actually killed in
the alley next to the theater, but they have it blocked off so you can’t wander
back in there.
 |
| Site of John Dillinger's death |
After the theater,
we rushed over to
Graceland Cemetery which is just north
of Wrigley Field.
It’s a pretty
cool cemetery with a lot of famous Chicago people buried there.
We only had about an hour to tour the
cemetery before it closed for the day, so we ran around to the most famous and
noteworthy headstones.
 |
| Pullman Family - Of the Pullman Rail cars |
 |
| Kimball - the piano family |
 |
| Famous architect who trained Frank Lloyd Wright |
 |
| Armour - The hotdog people |
 |
| The department store guy |
Afterwards, we walked down to Wrigleyville and sat in
a bar outside the stadium just to have a quick drink and to rest our feet. I actually could not believe how tired
I was from walking all day.
 |
| Wedding party getting their pictures taken by the stadium |
After
our drinks, we hopped back on the L and went way north of town to this cool
German restaurant, The Chicago Brauhaus for dinner and drinks.
 |
| Great German food and bier! |
After dinner, we hopped back on the L
and headed back to our hotel.
It
was really warm outside, so we walked down by the river along Wacker Drive on
our way back to the hotel.
I knew
that there was an upper and lower Wacker, but Gary noticed that there seemed to
be a third level to Wacker where all these semi- trucks were parked.
We took a look at them and discovered
that the trucks were all the equipment trucks for Paramount for filming the movie.
So, we wandered down there to take a
look.
We took a few pictures, but
didn’t stay long because there was a cop on watch down there just sitting to
make sure that people like us don’t mess with anything.
Haha
After that we just wandered back up to our hotel for the
night.
 |
| Optimus Prime?? |
The next day, our plan was to hit a few more ‘landmarks’
on our way out of town.
Since I
had read Upton Sinclair’s book ‘The Jungle’, I really wanted to see the gates
of the old Chicago stockyards, which is the last standing object that shows
that the stockyards even existed.
So, we made our way there and took a few pictures.
 |
| The Chicago Union Stockyard Gates |
Our final stop before heading back to Michigan was
visiting the Statue of the Republic.
It was built in the early 1900’s for the World’s Fair when it was held
in Chicago. It stands on the
grounds of the fair, which are actually behind the Museum of Science and
Industry. It’s pretty cool to see.
 |
| The Statue of the Republic |
After that last stop I think it was safe to say that we tore the crap out of Chicago. haha. It was a great trip and a great way to end the summer.
