Saturday February 8 - Navy Pier

What a day!!!

I managed to make the free breakfast and it is the VERY best so far and cannot see any other hotel beating it, there was so much choice. The room was so crowded it was hard to find a seat.

There was some very light snow falling, so light that it was not settling anywhere so I decided to stay with my plan of visiting the Navy Pier. It was quite a pleasant walk to the pier from the hotel even though it was cold and my glasses kept steaming up!! 

I took a slight detour to see all the pleasure boats tied up and mostly iced in! 

Then on to the main entrance, in Minnesota I saw the Ice Sculptures, this time it was the Snow Sculptures!! The artists were busy applying the final touches as the winner is to be announced at 6pm tonight.

Once inside, I had to take a layer off as it was nice and warm. It was also very busy, being a Saturday would have obviously helped this.

I wandered through and came across four penguins from the Shedd Aquarium they were hatched there so are very friendly towards humans as was obvious from the way they interacted with their handlers. 

The guy was stroking one under the chin and I swear if it had been a cat it would have been purring! I hope to catch up with these guys when I visit the Aquarium. They are not usually at the Navy Pier but are there for the day to help celebrate the Snow Sculpting!

I then went upstairs to the Crystal Garden and what a wonderful place especially given the weather outside.

I went outside for a few minutes just to take a few photos and realised that the blue boat I had seen earlier was actually trying to keep the ice broken up!

The amusements on the pier were all closed for the winter and certainly looked forlorn with the snow around. The skyscrapers along Michigan Avenue were starting to disappear into the low cloud and snow!

Then back inside and I came across the food court, with a Starbucks, what a surprise! So had my coffee for the day and then noticed something that made me think of Jacci, a Garrett Popcorn shop. Of course, I had to go inside and buy some, a small bag of Cheese Corn was the result. 

There are quite a variety of eating places in the area but I decided I really would like some soup so I wandered back to the main entranceway and discovered that Capi’s Italian Kitchen served the Tomato Basil soup I have come to really like. I also ordered three bread sticks, freshly baked, and they were delicious. As with most places I have been to, the staff were very friendly and pleasant. I also discovered that the snow had got much worse and was actually settling now, it will be a fun walk back to the hotel, no taxi or bus for me!!

At this point I feel I must say something about Restrooms, I have generally been impressed with the cleanliness of these but I must say I often do not know if the flush is suddenly going to go on its own (automatic) or if I have to do it manually!! The first time I experienced an automatic one I nearly jumped out of my skin! As for the taps, is it a push, pull, rotating etc will it turn off automatically or will I have to turn it off, oh, and which way for hot water?? LOL!

So, I put all my layers back on and headed for the outdoors! The snow was definitely settling now, even on the roads and I must say I felt a bit exposed when crossing the road. At one intersection one idiot driver went across the on-coming traffic and turned in front of pedestrians who were crossing on the little white man! The oncoming traffic did not appreciate his recklessness! It would have been a huge pile up if they had not been able to stop in time!

Walking back I had to take much more care over my footing and I thought I would take a picture of Michigan Avenue in the snow, I kept waiting for it to appear when I realised I had passed underneath it!!! The snow ploughs were out, though I felt they made it worse for pedestrians at intersections in the way they piled the snow up! On the way back, my glasses did not steam up and it did not feel quite as cold, all relative though!

So it was back to my room to dry off and warm up a bit, I was not really that cold as my layers seem to be working and the snow was not a really wet snow. I pulled up Google maps as I wanted to see how far I had walked and it is one and a half miles from my hotel to the Navy Pier so not a bad walk for today. I think I will hunker down in my hotel room this evening, not a good one for venturing outside!!