Sunday September 19: CHICAGO!!!!!

It's official - we have made it to Chicago and the entrance to the waterway south. At least a week later than we thought but there were never two more happy people to have Lake Michigan behind us. Even at the end, it didn't want to let us go though.

We left Michigan City about 9 am with weather predicted to be fine for the 4 1/2 hour run across the end of the lake - about 35 miles. The route we took is below - traveled a total of 61 miles to go 35. We were about 1/3 of the way across and a very dark cloud started moving over Chicago - along with lightening and rain in a separate cloud north of us moving southeast. We turned around and headed back to Michigan City. Then it looked like it was going to be clear (as indicated by the satellite picture on the weather site so we decided to try it again. Things were fine until the last 12 miles (1 1/2 hours). Winds picked up and tossed us around the whole way in - crazy. We could see the harbor entrance but had to zig-zag our way the whole time as we were needing to go broadside to the waves which is never a good idea nor a pleasant ride. (And sometime I was broadside anyway as Steve pointed out when we were rolled over at quite an angle.)

Regardless, we finally made it to the harbor - there was a high five to celebrate :-) The city is really a site from the water. Fun fountain that was shooting water for our arrival. We are docked just south of Navy Pier and will either stay here or possibly move to the marina a mile or so south to be by the museums. Again an exhausting day but Steve came to the rescue when he came back from signing us into the marina with carry-out chinese! The best crab rangoon we have had probably EVER. Guess where we are going for lunch :-)

To top off our welcome to Chicago, there were fireworks right outside our door - just because it was a Saturday night I guess. Then about 45 minutes later another just down the harbor a bit. Steve said it was the second best fireworks he'd ever seen (one in Cleveland was the best). We finished the night watching Notre Dame/Michigan although we had had it and couldn't stay awake to see who won in overtime. Guess we should have as it was an exciting ending with Michigan State winning with a fake field goal attempt. Too bad ...