Chicago

A New Beginning for Route 66

If you’re familiar with Route 66, you know that it went through some realignments over the years to make it a more efficient route and to address safety concerns (some of those old mountain roads are downright terrifying!), which is why it doesn’t bother me that to celebrate the centennial, they did this:

Yes, they gave old Route 66 a new beginning by moving the “official” start to Chicago’s Navy Pier, which means the Mother Road now runs “pier to pier,” from where it begins in Chicago to the end at the Santa Monica pier in California. I actually think this was a really cool thing they did to honor the centennial and tie the two ends of Route 66 together, and Navy Pier is a really special location to honor a historic road.

Sometimes a fresh start is just what you need!

Chickadee Thursday

Chickadee has a great time at the Pokémon Fossil Museum at the Field Museum in Chicago!

And we stopped at Navy Pier (the new starting point for Route 66) for ice cream!

Markel Family Combo Breaker 2026 Getaway–Day Two

Last Wednesday we were at the Metra station in Palatine pretty early to get a jumpstart on one of the best days of the year…the day we go to Chicago!

We even managed to get on a train earlier than I planned, which gave us a little more time downtown.

We visited all of our favorite spots:

And we found lots of pigeons!

I got to spend some time on the lakefront:

And we enjoyed a few treats:

Marshall Field’s (or Macy’s if you’re from out of town) is always an important stop, because we have to get our box of Frango Mints for the year…we were impressed to find that they are doing a lot of improvements in the old flagship store:

Our time went by entirely too quickly, though, and pretty soon we were back at Ogilvie Transportation Center:

I think we walked almost from one end of the train to the other looking for seats up top, as is our tradition on the way home, and we finally found our preferred spot:

When we got back, we headed down to the convention center to help out a bit with setup before we got some pizzas for dinner…after walking seven or eight miles downtown, we were famished!

Up next: a sculpture park, and the real beginning of our work!

Chicago-Style Pizza and Portillo’s Cake for 3/12

Happy 312 Day, a day to celebrate the great city of Chicago based on the city’s (and my) original telephone area code. I made our favorite Chicago-style pizza for dinner, and Bunny made a Portillo’s-inspired chocolate cake for dessert…it was a most delicious day!