More Chicago

Just finished day 2 of the Blues Festival.  It's been pretty damn good to date.  No real big names this year (they have had Bonnie Raitt, Ray Charles, B.B. King, the late Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy and the late Koko Taylor in previous years).  This is it's 28th year.  It is the largest free blues festival in the world and draws approximately 1 million people.


Before I rocked up this morning I wandered around downtown Chicago on a self-guided architecture tour.  Chicago was literally burnt to the ground in 1871.  Now it has almost 1100 skyscrapers, and is regarded the birthplace of the skyscraper.  The first ever steel-framed skyscraper was completed here in 1885 (that is not a typo). It was 10 stories. Now, the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the highest here at 108 stories. And, according to our guide, Chicago had the first fully air-conditioned skyscraper too. The architecture photos will be posted later when I get around to sorting them.


On my walk I was lucky enough to catch one of the bridges being raised. The Chicago river has about 50 bridges crossing it, and they need to be raised on occasion.

I had only just bought a larger capacity SD card for my camera otherwise I would have not been able to video the process.  You can check these videos out with my photos. I didn't video the actual passing of the boats but have one each for raising and lowering. Impressive engineering. I was actually surprised at how quickly this was accomplished. Guess it needs to be so the city is not at a standstill for any length of time.

I have now sampled both some Chicago deep dish pizza (pretty average really) and a Chicago style hot dog. Supposedly, Chicago contains more hotdog vendors that McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King restaurants combined ! Toppings are (in order) - yellow mustard, bright 'neon' green relish, fresh chopped onions, two tomato wedges, a pickle spear or slice, two sport peppers and a dash of celery salt.  It is frowned upon to ask for ketchup - some vendors don't even offer it ! The order is important as if done correctly, you should get a taste of everything in every bite.  I was coming home from a hostel organised pub crawl and although I realised it was different I think I didn't mind it.


Think I've decided my next destination will be Cleveland, Ohio - more specifically the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ! I won't be able to get many photos though - cameras need to be checked at the door.  A new Beatles exhibition just opened this week. www.rockhall.com


It's about 11pm here so that makes it about 3:00pm the next day there.  Either way, I think I need some sleep.


l8r