The last time we visited Chicago was about 15 years ago. We stayed at a hotel on Michigan Avenue and visited the museums and the Navy Pier. I remember it not being the nicest of places back then, so it was with some mixed feelings that we decided to stay at DuSable Marina in downtown Chicago for three nights. 

The trip from St. Joseph to Chicago took us across the bottom of Lake Michigan and as should be expected the weather forecast was not in line with what we experienced. The waves were probably 2 feet on our stern. We were uncomfortable but not in danger so we pressed on and after several hours of running at our fast cruising speed we started to see the Chicago skyline. The marina is located right at the entrance to the Chicago River so it wasn’t hard to find.

In addition to seeing Chicago we were also trying to time our trip down the Illinois River to correspond with the scheduled closures of several of the locks. The Corps of Engineers is in the process of updating several of the locks along this route. They have been partially closed for the past few weeks but they are going to be fully open for 10 days before being fully closed starting September 20th.

We were pleasantly surprised with our time in Chicago. It was my birthday so we found a place called Taco Maya for some street tacos. That turned out to be really good. As it turns out there has been quite a bit of development in downtown over the past 10+ years and it is considerably more pedestrian friendly than it was when we last visited. The riverwalk is now an attractive destination.

On our second day in the city we took an architecture cruise tour. It seems odd that we would take a boat ride through the same area we would be cruising through later in the week, but the reasoning was that I could enjoy the scenery and the architecture better if I wasn’t also driving the boat. This turned out to be a great choice and was one of the highlights of our week. 

We went to Lou Malnati’s for Chicago style pizza. That was awesome too!  We walked quite a bit. We visited the Apple Store, the Disney Store, the Lego Store, and walked around to see some historic buildings and landmarks.

Since the marina was right at the water in downtown it was a great location for walking in the downtown area and seeing the sights.