The National Indoors at Homewood ended Saturday. Since both Susan and I had flights out Sunday morning we decided to play tourist and visit the “Windy City”.

Our first order of business was to return one of our rental cars…mine, since it was off airport and for a week and a day. Did you know Payless Rental Car company only has one outlet in Chicago and it’s not at Midway, it’s near O’Hare. I didn’t know that either, but we found our way there from Homewood and back to Hinsdale.

We decided to take the train to Chicago on Sunday. We were prepared for cold weather, but while it was chilly in the morning it turned out to be a perfect day, nearly 70, and only light winds (the “Windy City” moniker came from a political convention, politicians, hot air…you get the drift..Chicago isn’t all that windy, it just generally has miserable weather). Our friend and hostess, Christy Schaeffer, directed us to the train schedule and train station, and we were on our way to Union Station.

First stop was Sears…er Willis Tower, 103 stories high, over 1400 feet and still the tallest building in the USA. At 10am it wasn’t terribly crowded and we had time to look at the views and step out onto the clear window box ledges (not for anyone who has a fear of heights…Susan was a bit uncertain (I think she sweated more walking onto the glass ledge than in the entire tournament in Florida) but she walked out there anyway…there were lots of people ahead of us who stood out there, so it seemed safe enough to me. I thought it was fun! We took photos galore and then descended again, which took only a minute.

After lunch (turkey sandwiches of course) we walked past the Chicago Board of Trade (near McDonalds) and under the “El” (the elevated mass transit line in Chicago). We found Michigan Avenue and walked the “Miracle Mile” past the Arts Museum,  Millennium Park and down to Lakeshore Drive (along Lake Michigan, the third larges of the Great Lakes) to Navy Pier. Navy Pier was a bit of a disappointment, being under construction though. From there we went back along the Lake (and under the freeway, where we dodged bicyclists and vice versa) and back to Michigan Avenue where we had time for a brief tour of the museum, especially the impressionist and American areas.

There is a lot to do in Chicago and we only had a small taste, but it was really fun on a perfect spring day. There were lots of blooming tulips, in all colors.

No visit to Chicago would be complete without some Chicago pizza, so we stopped for some and made our way back to Hinsdale. It was a nice ending to the hectic tournament week. Regarding those 16000 steps; I had a counter on and by the end of the day I’d walked at least 16000 steps…a pretty active “rest” day!

Next up: I’m going to go by the men’s 75-90 Hard one day this week and Father/Daughter Hard is up the weekend after Memorial Day.