Road Trip Part 3 - Chicago

On Monday morning we walked a couple of blocks to rent bikes for the day. We biked the lakefront trail around Lake Michigan all the way up to Lincoln Park. It was a beautiful ride! 

Keegan rode with Jeff and Ava pedaled on tandem with me. 

Ready for the day!

Heading into Lincoln Park....It is such a pretty park. We only saw half off it but the bike trail sent us straight to the zoo entrance. We enjoyed a couple of hours at the Lincoln Park Zoo but it was hot!  

The gorilla habitat was incredible.  This guy came right up to Ava at the window!

And there were several little ones to watch. 

Heading into the tiger exhibit.. The buildings are so old and beautiful. But of course all the cats were sleeping. 

We rode back to the beach around 1 and it was so hot! The boys pulled over and waited while Ava and I jumped into the Lake to cool off.

Hello cold and deep Lake Michigan! We're jumping in!

We spent a couple of hours on Oak Street beach and let the kids play...

We returned our bikes and walked to our hotel, stopping of course for free slurpees at 7-11 on 7/11 :)

That evening we decided to try Lou Malnatis' for dinner on our way to Willis Tower. These girls were dressed and ready for an evening out :)

Jeff had deep dish again. (When in Rome....) The kids had chicken and I tried a pasta dish. It was really good. We agreed Malnatis was better than Giordano's. 

We shared a Cookie Monster for desert. 

I'm not sure Keegan liked it ;)

We took the train over to Willis Tower. This was really fun! We were going to take a cab but saw the station near the restaurant and took it on a whim. It only took a few minutes. 

We took the 'skydeck experience' elevator to the 103rd floor of Willis Tower. The views were amazing. 

We walked out on the glass ledge! 103 stories above the city. 

Not scared.

We took a cab back to the hotel to swim and relax. 

Ava was so excited to ride in a taxi for the first time! We walked past several on the street to get to this one because it was yellow. It had to be a 'real' yellow cab. Ha! The driver was so nice and told her to get a picture in front of his cab :)

We were tired from the day! But so thankful for a fun day of adventures.