Chicago Trip - Navy Pier

You have to click on the photos to make them larger. Otherwise it would take forever for any of this to load. Above is a composite image of the Chicago skyline from the end of Navy Pier. This place is just beautiful. It's clean, it's people-friendly, it has lots of green spaces — Chicago is one of the candidate cities for the 2016 Olympic games and it has my vote as the perfect venue!

We originally hoped to head out to Navy Pier on Saturday night, but my DH's ankle was swollen and killing him with pain so we sat in the hotel room, put ice on his elevated ankle, and pretty much relaxed. It's a vacation, right? We should be relaxing!

Sunday morning, though, after we checked out of the hotel, we had several hours before catching the shuttle to the airport, we went to Navy Pier because I really wanted to ride the ferris wheel there.

Posing for a photo is a prerequisite to boarding the ferris wheel.

Purchasing the photo is not required, but my DH looked so nice in it that I got it.

Yep, that's the ferris wheel. It takes about 7 minutes to go completely around. The only one larger than this is the British Airways London Eye (in London, England, of course).

Did I mention that this thing is really big?

A view from near the top and looking down on the carousel ride as well as the various tour boats along the dock. (The tours weren't leaving until around 11:30 a.m., which was when we needed to go back to the hotel. We hear the architectural tour is wonderful.)

These are a few of the flowers that were inside one of the buildings along the pier. It was a waiting area for a restaurant. What a beautiful place!