Summertime in Chi-town and Door County with the Benziger family

By katabata September 01, 2022

Chicago, IL

View from the condo of the Chicago river

Just like the lyrics to the song, "Summer in the city," Chicago in June is a very hot town.

"Hot town, summer in the city; back of my neck getting dirty and gritty, been down. Isn't it a pity. Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city..."

We spent a few days in downtown Chicago being tourists and visiting Grandpa and Grandma Benziger. We drove down from Minneapolis after a weekend of camping with seven families at St. Croix State Park and Seth flew in from Denver where he had attended a back-to-back Grateful Dead and Co. show. The temps were in the 90s all week, which was a welcome change from the 50-60s we were having in Duluth. The kids had their roller blades and enjoyed practicing along the riverwalk when it cooled down at night.

During the day we wandered around downtown. We went on an art hunt for the 25 most famous paintings in the Chicago Art Museum. We ate LOTS of Chicago dogs. We got wet playing in the Crown fountain (50 foot glass towers that intermittently spray water) at Millennium park and posed by the giant bean (formally called Cloud Gate). We wandered over the Frank Gehry BP bridge to Maggie Daley Park where we played the best and most iconic 18 holes of mini golf ever.

The next day we opted for an Uber to Navy Pier (rather than walk) and had fun getting lost in the mirror maze in the tourist trap: Amazing Chicago's FunHouse maze. The kids convinced us to play more mini golf (totally overpriced and Pixar themed and not nearly as good at the Chicago #cityminigolf).

We walked up to Ohio Street beach for a quick dip in the big great lake before heading back along the riverwalk to the condo. We watched the El train and commuter trains for a while before heading down to the riverwalk to= see the "Art on the Mart" nighttime show - a LED light show projected with 16 projectors onto the 2.5 acre facade of the Merchandise Mart!

The third day the heat index jumped up even higher from 88 to 105 and the once refreshing Lake Michigan breeze became a hot blast. The thick, humid, warm wind off the lake was unbearable so we opted for a day indoors instead. Grandma and Grandpa met us at the condo and we headed to the Shedd Aquarium. By early afternoon, we had fed the sting rays, touched the star fish, seen the jellies, visited the exhibits, watched the 4D show about sharks, ate popcorn, admired the beluga whales, saw the dolphins spin and found the penguins. We were getting hungry. In less than 5 minutes after leaving the museum, we felt like baked potatoes so we took our Chicago dogs to-go and quickly took shelter inside across the garden in the Field museum. We stayed nice and cool in the A.C. exploring the Egyptian and prehistoric exhibits until it closed!

Along the river walk

Studying the masters at the Art Museum

Crown fountain

Cloud Gate "bean"

#cityminigolf

Go Bulls!

Lots of trains!

Feeding sting rays fish

Grandma fed the sting ray too!

Watching the dolphin show

Flying dolphins

Field museum Jurassic ocean exhibit and megalodon jaw

Art on the Mart

Pixar mini golf

3D fun house

Lost in the mirror maze

Ohio Street beach

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Door County, WI

Seth and his parents

Grandma and Grandpa Benziger and the grandkids

Looking out on Lake Michigan

In July, we met up with the Benziger family for a celebration of Bob and Kim's 80th birth year! We met up nearly half way between Chicago and Duluth - Door County, Wisconsin. We had not been together on vacation for quite some time and it was fun to see each other. Maya had just graduated from Bates College. Zachary finished his first year at UC-Boulder and Dani was about to start her senior year. The younger kids, Theo and Marit, enjoyed playing at the Cliff Dweller's Resort's pool and riding the old bikes down Duluth Ave while the big cousins slept in.

Pool at the resort

Tandem bike

We visited a few states parks (and the local emergency room for a few stitches) but most of all we had some lovely family meals, including a wonderful steak dinner at the resort prepared by Seth and Keith. Saturday night, we were entertained at the famous fish boil at the Old Post Office in Ephraim before it started to rain and we got soaking wet. We took cover under the awning and asked for our cherry pies to go. We dried off and ate them back at the resort with some ice cream. We ended the weekend with a round of mini golf before driving back home.

While we didn't get a great family picture, it was a lovely family weekend. The peninsula has lots of great art studios and shops but it was super crowded with lots of boat and car traffic. If you want to know my totally unbiased opinion, the North Shore of Lake Superior is way better. :)