Day 7: "Ready on the mizzen!"

Today was quite an eventful day. Since we stayed in the same hotel last night and attended a night game tonight, we had  the luxury of taking the day to walk around Chicago and see the sights.  The adventure began with Dr. Bob dropping us off at the train station.  While waiting for our train, we amused ourselves by playing a super intense game of Catchphrase (that has yet to be resolved).  After awhile the train came and we had the good fortune of sitting near a nice Chicago native who told us what stop we needed to get off at to get to Navy Pier.

We ended up getting off of the train at the stop that's really close to the Bean, so we decided to go check that out.  From there, we found another Chicago native and got their advice on the best Chicago style deep dish pizza around.  Luckily, the restaurant they recommended was super close to where we were so it was only a short walk to get to the delicious pizza we had all been craving.  After eating we walked to Navy Pier via the River Walk path.  Once we got to the Pier, we really had no plan; we just walked around, took some pretty sweet pictures with statues, pondered which airbrush tattoos we would get if we felt like paying that much money, tried on afro wigs, and other random activities.

Then, as we were walking, we found a pirate. Madison of course immediately wanted his picture taken with said pirate, and then we got to talking with him and he told us all about the pirate ship tour. The price was $25/person so obviously we said no but then another pirate offered us a group discount price of $10/person.  What a steal, right? It clearly would have been foolish of us to pass up on such a cheap 75 minutes of piratey excitement, so before we knew it we were sailing away on the Tall Ship Windy (the name of their ship).  It was definitely $10 well spent.  Some of the guys got to raise the mizzen sail, Stephanie got to ring the bell, and I got to fire the cannon. Plus the pirates were hilarious and during the ride, they told us true pirate stories. Try not to get too jealous.

After sailing the seven seas...or a lake, whatever... we made our way to the Cell to see the Rangers take on the White Sox again.  This time, the home team was victorious, although I can't say it was a very exciting game.  Lots of walks.  The final score was 4-3 which Stephanie and I were really pleased about because it meant we didn't have to stay for the bottom of the ninth.  Not that we were hating on baseball, but we have to be in the lobby at 4:15 a.m. tomorrow so we were all about getting back to the hotel and getting to sleep.  Tomorrow is going to be quite a long drive (Chicago to Philly); stay tuned to hear the results of that delightful van trip and the game tomorrow night.

Also, sorry this post had almost nothing to do with baseball. Whoops :)

So delighted to be on the train

Daaaa bean.

On the pirate ship

Doing work raising that mizzen sail and showing their badass pirate faces...except Erick who is apparently not gritty enough to take on a true pirate persona

The pirates telling us stories

View of Navy Pier from the ship

Kinda dark but this is our group picture