Week 53 - Chicago, Grand Rapids - 08-19-2007

Greetings from the Great Lakes,

We had a great week of visiting people and places.

Last February we were in Clarksdale, Arizona waiting for a tourist train. Hank (below) was trying to call on his Cingular phone but had no reception. Pete's Verizon phone had plenty of bars, so he offered his phone to Hank. After making his call we chatted, and Hank and Arlene told us to come by their home in Wilmette, Illinois. Warning: If you ask us to visit, we will! We stayed two days in their driveway and had a great time. They are in their seventies but very lively and fun. Hank talks non-stop so Ellen had no problem making conversation.

We had no intention of visiting the city of Chicago but Hank and Arlene told us that we must! It was great. Their new Millennium Park is full of unusual art. One piece, Cloud Gate, is a giant chrome "donut" that reflects everything around it. We took the Urban Cruise 90 minute lake and river tour.

From Lake Michigan and the Chicago River you see hundreds of unique buildings. The 1871 Chicago fire burned 18,000 buildings, basically leveling the city. Chicago is considered the birthplace of the skyscraper. After the fire, the steel-reinforced building design was invented here. The large building in photo two is the Merchandise Mart. It is the largest multi-story commercial building in the world. It houses 30,000 workers and has its own zip code. The draw bridge shown is one of 47 draw bridges over the Chicago River. The River has a VERY interesting story, that we save until the end of the email.

The beautiful Chicago Water Tower is the only downtown building that survived the 1871 fire and is still standing. It contains a 138 foot tall column of water that was used to provide water pressure for fighting fires. Unfortunately, the volume of water was no match for the the great fire.

We rated our camp site at the Grand Rogue campground a 4 out of 5. Normally we demand a concrete patio and cable TV to get a 4, but it was huge and beautiful with no visible neighbors.

We stayed two days in Grand Rapids visiting cousin Tanya and Aunt Hildegarde.

We had lovely dinners and toured downtown Grand Rapids. Tanya was raised here and we saw her schools, her Mom's house and heard a lot of great stories about her early years with her mom and dad.

Kayaking was great on the Rogue River!

Speaking of rivers, check this out. Chicago has the world's largest fresh water filtration plant. Water from Lake Michigan is pumped and filtrated to serve Chicago and 79 other communities. During the 1800's sewage was dumped into the Chicago River which flowed from the west into Lake Michigan. As it polluted the lake, people were getting sick and dying. The city planners were left with several solutions. They could stop using the lake for drinking water; they could stop polluting the river; or they could reverse the flow of the river! They dug a 28 mile canal from the southern branch of the river to connect it to the Des Plaines River which in turn dumps into the Mississippi. Now the pollution goes to the Gulf of Mexico! Eventually they stopped polluting the river. It's rating has changed from Toxic to Polluted and is now Fit for Human Contact. Yippee!

Next week we head to Wakarusa, Indiana to see the birthplace of our motorhome. We will visit the Monaco factory, and once again meet up with our California neighbors, Ben and Sid, who are in hot and humid Nashville this week.

Love, Pete and Ellen

Photos from Aug 2007