Today began much like yesterday ended – trying to figure out how to get our large truck around a bunch of low clearance bridges. Once we got that figured out, we took the train/subway into downtown Chicago and spent the majority of the day there. We walked the magnificent mile, cut down along the canal, ate some Giordano’s deep dish pizza, and along the way saw an interesting parking garage in two of the high-rises.

After that we checked out the Navy Pier and got rained on a bit while heading back over to Millenium Park.

(Downtown Chicago view from Navy Pier)

We wandered through the park for a while before ending up at the Art Institute of Chicago. Thursday nights are free, and I was amazed how much came back to me from high school art/history lessons. I viewed original Picassos, Monets, Moreau, Mattisse, and the one painting that sent chills down my spine was Seurat’s most famous:

Oh, and the other painting of note was American Gothic (you know, the farmer with the pitchfork and daughter).

After that we were both fairly worn out and decided to head back north to the truck. We timed our arrival at the truck perfectly, as it started to storm while crossing the parking lot between the train and truck. It turned into a lot of rain and some nice lighting, and as we drove further north we got a nice lightning/rainstorm/sunset/rainbow combo. Now we’re in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin for our next event.