One of the things Jason recommended that we do was the Chicago River Architecture Tour. This 60-90 minute tour started downtown near Whacker Drive (the street made famous in the Blues Brothers movie - the first one, not the second one). We then went down each branch of the river, and as we passed various buildings, the tour guide gave a brief history of each. This is where I got most of my photos of the city. We sat on the upper level of the boat.

It was a bright day, and the views were great. Twenty minutes into the tour, the sunscreen that I put on my face seeped into my eyes, and I couldn't concentrate on the tour because my eyes were burning. There wasn't much I could do, so I just waited for it to subside. When I opened my eyes again and could see, we were in a completely different place. Luckily the tour came back through the same area in a loop, so I didn't miss anything.

Now, I'm not a big architecture enthusiast, and I usually don't care much for this sort of thing, but I appeared to have taken the most pictures of this experience compared to any other thing we did. It is a very good looking city, and the river tour is probably the best way to see so much at once. You can tell the city takes great pride in how they build things.

The tour was a little boring, and the sun was probably starting to get to me, so I was glad to be back to the dock.

One of our objectives while in Chicago was to have deep dish pizza. Food TV did a profile of Giordano's, which was fairly close to Jason's neighborhood, so we went there for lunch after the river tour.

Chicago deep dish pizza gets its name from the way it is made. Deep dish, associated with Chicago, is more like a pie than a pizza. The dough is laid out in the pan,which usually has a 1-2" depth. Cheese is put down first, then toppings, then sauce. Crazy!

Deep dish is usually contrasted against NY style pizza, which is what most people are exposed to. In Hazleton, we had NY style pizza places on every corner with names like Two Guys, Two Italian Guys, Two Guys from Italy, Italy's Two Guys, Guys Italian II (you get the idea...) I grew up eating various types of NY style pizza (flat, thin crust, heavy dough). Of the various types if NY pizza, my favorite tends to have a heavier chewy crust, a nice combination of sauce and cheese, and can be folded into a V shape with one hand. The closest thing to deep dish that I've ever had is Pizza Hut, but we don't need to dwell on that...

We ordered the calamari appetizer and a deep dish pizza with mushrooms and spinach. The pizza was good, but I am not a convert. I am glad I tried it, but there was not anything particularly special about it. Deep dish has to be eaten with a fork, so you lose the tactile experience. I think it is probably much better if you eat red meat and order a more substantial filling.

While having lunch, we talked about our sleeping accommodations. When we were planning the trip several months prior, Jason invited us to stay at his place, but we thought his place was too small, and we'd be putting him out too much. So when we booked our train, we also booked a room at Howard Johnson.

Problem was, the hotel was a good distance away from where we were going to spend most of our time, and the late check in time had already required us to drag our luggage to Jason's. We saw that Jason's apartment wasn't as small as we thought. The hotel also had an early check out time (11:00 am) and our train didn't leave until 10:00 pm, which meant we'd have to cart our stuff around town until our train left.

Our check-in time (3:00) was fast approaching. After further discussion with Jason, we decided to see if we could cancel our hotel reservation and stay with Jason instead. Luckily, the hotel did not penalize us for the cancellation on short notice, and with one phone call the decision was final. We'd stay at Jason's, have more time to spend with him, less time carting our stuff around, and save a few bucks in the process!

After lunch we roamed around the neighborhood until it was time for Jason to go to rehearsal. We still had the whole evening to ourselves.

**It was around this time that it hit me - this was not going to be a trip that I could write about in real time as I had done on previous trips. There was so much to see and do, and we were only going to be there a short time. Time in front of my journal was limited to the downtimes between activities, which wasn't very often. (This account is a condensed and organized version of my hand-written journal.)

This is important to consider when planning a trip. If, like me, you enjoy writing while you are traveling, you need to build in some downtime. In our case, we hit the ground running. Our first day - which I am still writing about - was filled with numerous experiences. For a more writing-focused vacation, places like the shore, Maine and campgrounds tend to be better for me.