Our 2nd Trip to the 2nd City

Some think Chicago is called the 2nd city b/c it is 2nd only to NYC. However, my husband, who is full of infinite knowledge (haha) informed me of the real reason. They call Chicago the 2nd city because the city was virtually rebuilt after The Great Fire. We decided to cash in some Delta sky miles and celebrate the 4th of July in Chicago. 2010 has been a very busy year for us, and this was a much needed vacation (although there was little rest). We arrived in Chicago Friday night and checked in our hotel, The Palmer House. I would highly recommend this hotel. It is a part of the Hilton family of hotels and was very convenient to everything. Since we have been to Chicago before, we threw in some new things to do but also enjoyed our favorite things as well. We were able to squeeze a lot in to a weekend trip and hated to see it end.

Here are some pictures of the highlights of our trip.

Day 1:

The beautiful lobby of The Palmer House. The ceiling was hand painted. The hotel

was given by Potter Palmer as a wedding present to his wife, and was the first American

building to have electricity, phone service, and an elevator.

I love the ornate Peacock Door.


Chicago is so beautiful at night.

If you want a fabulous steak, we would recommend this restaurant. Our neighbor recommended it to us, and we were very glad we took his advice!

On our way to stuff our faces. We had plans to stop by Flatwater (behind us)

after dinner to take in the scenery of the Chicago River, but we were

much too full from dinner.

Steve Miller Band performing at Taste of Chicago.

Everyone loves this!
Not sure what it is, but you can find it at Millenium Park.

Enjoying Taste of Chicago with Buckingham Fountain in the background.

It was very hot and crowded, but the food was well worth it!
Can you tell we like to eat??

The biggest hit of our trip was our visit to The Lincoln Park Zoo. Neither of us

our big "zoo people", but I had heard many positive comments about the zoo.

We were not disappoined. The zoo was beautiful, clean, and best of all FREE!

This Sun Bear best represented how we felt after our long day in the sun.