Grant Park and Wrigleyville

We made it to Chicago late Friday night. We spent the night with our friend Nikki, from CKI, who lives in a Polish neighborhood called Portage Park. She had a whole guest room for us to stay in and a friendly cat named Maxwell. We were only staying one day in Chicago so we had to make the most of it. We woke up early Saturday morning and headed downtown. The Logan statue in Grant Park was Brandon's number one priority. We went the wrong direction and bumped into the Buckingham Fountain (aka the Married With Children fountain):

Can you see how foggy it was? Until now, I have only been to Chicago in January, so I thought it was going to be a nice change. Unfortunately, it was rainy and windy and freezing! After walking a bit, in the right direction, we found the Logan statue:

Up on a hill and very impressive. It was originally built as a tomb for Logan and his wife but their remains were never moved from DC. After that we grabbed donuts at Dunkin Donuts and continued to walk around and enjoy the city. We stopped by Cloud Gate in Millennium Park:

We returned to Nikki's around lunch time. Per her suggestion we all headed to Wrigleyville on the bus. We got dropped off right outside of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. (Chicago also has another baseball team - the White Sox.) Our goal was to have lunch at a famous Food Network/Travel Channel restaurant so we headed to Lucky Sandwich Shop which was featured on Man V. Food for its sandwiches loaded with fries and slaw. But, there was a 20 minute wait and we would have had to stand out in the rain so we ended up at The Cubby Bear.

I ordered the Chicago dog with tots. The tots were perfectly fried, extra crispy. The hot dog was just what I wanted:

The last mandatory stop of the day was Nuts on Clark:

This is where Brandon buys his favorite candy, German raspberries and blackberries:

Despite the rain, it was a lovely afternoon. But the main reason we came to Chicago was later that evening ...