First Stop--lunch at the top of the Hancock Building
Next stop--American Girl--they were in heaven!
Rachel was excited to see her doll, Saige, who is retired, in a display of all of the old Girls of the Year
Next to the American Girl store is a Lego store, which they also enjoyed
No trip to Chicago is complete without a trip to the weird bean shaped sculpture
(I think it's called Cloudscape, but I think most people just call it "The Bean.")
They built a cool new playground near Millennium Park--I like how the skyline is in the background. Rachel is pretending that she's surfing.
Another part of the playground
Buckingham Fountain--last time Brian and I were here, the fountain wasn't working,
so we were excited to see it was this time.
The spray from the fountain felt so good because it was SO hot that afternoon!
Day 2--Museum of Science and Industry--The girls thought these fun house mirrors were hilarious!
Trolley at the Museum of Science and Industry
Sue, the T-Rex at the Field Museum--Day 3
Rachel loves Ancient Egyptian history, so she was so excited to see this exhibit!
Day 4--our way up to the highpoint of Illinois, we ran in to Melissa Arnot and Maddie Miller, who were attempting to climb the 50 U.S. Highpoints in 50 days. Brian and Rachel had been following their progress, and knew they only had two more to go, Illinois, and Hawaii. So we knew there was a chance we might see them, and we did! When we saw them, they were on their way to the airport to fly to Hawaii to complete the challenge the next day!
Here we are at the highpoint
Next we traveled to Iowa and saw the Mississippi River.
In Dubuque, Iowa, we found this old Incline Elevator up the side of the hill.
It was fun and there was a great view of the Mississippi River at the top.
Inside the elevator
View from the top
As we drove back home, we drove through beautiful farmland....rolling green hills and blue skies.
