Thursday started off well, with a trip to our favorite Chicago breakfast place, Ann Sather’s. Ann Sather’s is in the Swedish neighborhood of Chicago, Andersonville, and is about two to three miles from Shannon and Jo’s place. They have the best cinnamon rolls I have ever had anywhere. The breakfasts there are huge – you get a main dish (usually eggs or a wrap for me) and two sides. One of the sides is two enormous cinnamon rolls – two! I usually pick hash browns for the other side. So, you end up with this huge meal for about $8. Mer and I both got wraps, and unusually and wisely saved half the wrap for breakfast on the next day. Ann Sather’s was the one thing I felt I had to get to while in Chicago, so I was happy to have made it.

I more or less planned Thursday – Mer had let me know she did not care what we did as long as we did not sit around the apartment all day. So, we jumped on the now-familiar El and went back downtown, getting off at Adams Street and walking west to the (building formerly known as) Sears Tower. Neither of us had been up in the Sears in a decade or more – on the rare occasions I consent to going up in tall buildings, I usually opt for the Hancock’s lounge, which is free as long as you buy something to drink or eat. I felt it was time for Mer to get back up in the Sears again, so we went in.

I’m finding out that weekday touring is pretty great. We walked right in to the building, paid for our tickets, and walked though a bunch or rooms designed to hold lots of tourists. They were empty. We stopped in the small theater to watch the history of the Sears Tower, and then made our way to the elevator. We had to wait in line for one carload, and then on we went and then up we went. A new and slightly disturbing feature of the elevator was the addition of a screen that flashed the famous buildings of the world (like the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower) as we passed their heights. Since I was scared going up on the Arc de Triomphe, it was not particularity comforting as we zoomed by it pretty early in the ride to the top.

The elevator opens on the Skydeck, and the flow of the room leads you around south-east-north and then west. The views south and east and north were very impressive with lots of tall buildings and the lake. Mer loved it. She was right up against the glass looking around. I could take being near the glass as long as I looked out and not down, and only in spans of a minute or two. After that, I would get frightened and retreat to the middle of the Skydeck, where I read about the history of Chicago.

After we had roamed the three sides of the building, we came to the fourth side and the reason I’d wanted Mer to come – the Ledge. Last year, the Sears people added four retractable plexiglass boxes that go out from the building about four or five feet. So, you can walk out on the clear ledge and look straight down the building. I could not do it, but Mer edged her way out into one of the boxes. She said it was pretty freaky to look down the side of the Sears Tower, and it even made her scared. The fourth and last box was reserved for Sears Tower people to take official photos of people. I decided that Mer and I should get one, so I screwed up my courage and backed out onto the Ledge without ever looking down or around. The camera guy was a bit impatient, but I could not go any faster. He took the photo, and I was back in the building in a shot, and then made a bee-line for the elevators. I had had enough. Mer humored me and came down with me, and we bought our photo.

We then went on to the next part of my plan, but stopped by the ever-convenient Shannon’s office to get water and to use the bathroom and to say hi. We were there for only a few minutes, and we kept on our way. We walked through Millennium Park and crossed the winding BP Bridge that I thought crossed Lake Shore Drive. It does not – it crosses some other street, so we used the more pedestrian route of the crosswalks to get over to the bike trail along the lake. We walked north along the trail, and after some time arrived at our destination – Navy Pier, about 2 miles total as we walked. Navy Pier is a fun place where there are a ton of little shops and small fair-like attractions, as well as the place where you can catch some lake and river boat rides. All of these things jut out into the lake on the huge pier.

We wandered into the mall-like area, where we were out of the sun, and made use of the restrooms. Then we walked along the pier on the inside. And we walked. And we walked. I was beginning to worry that the attraction I had wanted to see was not actually here, but we finally came upon it – Amazing Chicago. Amazing Chicago was a fun-house-like place with the theme of touring Chicago. You are supposed to be going up in the tallest building in Chicago when the elevator fails and plummets you to the sewers. You then need to find your way out. It was on the short side, but was really cool. It started out with a dark hall of mirrors that were only lit by ever-changing laser light. Mer and I had the place to ourselves, and we had to feel along with our hands so we would not smack into a mirror, which we would have once or twice. Then, we had to squeeze through a very small opening between two airbags – it felt like six inches, and was pretty claustrophobic. We then had to find and ring a bell attached to a single punching bag in a small forest of punching bags. Once we found that, we were confronted by a tunnel lit only by pinpricks of light in the tunnel walls, and the tunnel was rotating. We had to cross a catwalk in the middle of this tunnel. I did not think all that much about it until I stepped on the catwalk; then, my brain freaked out and was convinced my body was moving. My body leaned into the spin of the tunnel, and I had to struggle to get my legs to move in a straight line. It was a bizarre experience. The last attraction was a balcony you stepped on to to watch fake fireworks to celebrate your having made it out. Then a clock starts a countdown. I saw the countdown and wondered what it was for. Mer figured it out; I did not, and I was surprised when the countdown reached zero and the floor dropped a few inches. On the way out we had the choice for the exit or a door marked “Do It Again!”, so I ran back in. Sadly, that door led only back to the tunnel, which was still bizarre. I had hoped to do the hall of mirrors again. All in all, though, it was a very successful outing.

We wandered along the outside of the building on the pier, and I mentioned that I had seen a photo of a giant circular swing, like you can find at fairs. Mer said she had seen it near the Ferris wheel, so we went up the stairs to that section of the pier. Neither of us had done that kind of swings in years, and they even had couple-swings, where the swing was a two-seater. Shucks. We bought tickets and gave it a whirl. It was fun, although it started out kickier (faster and higher) than either of us had anticipated.

Having finished up with the pier, we walked a long ways back to an El stop, passing by (and even under) parts of the Magnificent Mile. We got back to Shannon and Jo’s and they were both home. We had tickets to a play for that night, and there was not time to go out for a real sit-down dinner, so Mer and I headed back over to the Charcoal Pit. Once we got back, everyone was set to go, so we headed a short distance north and east to the Raven Theater.

The Raven Theater was not a theater with which Mer or I had been familiar, but they were one of the very few theaters in Chicago actually doing a play we had heard of – The Odd Couple. Neither of us had ever seen it, although I had seen the television spin-off based on the play. The theater is well laid out, and fairly small, seating about 70 people. As far as I could guess, it was maybe a little over half full. No one had taken the front row seats, so we grabbed them.

The set was simple – a big room in an apartment, with a hallway leading to bedrooms offstage, and a kitchen in the center of the stage but behind a wall (so we could not see into it). The initial set of the stage was messy – there were pizza boxes and clothes and newspapers scattered everywhere. The play opened with five guys playing poker, and they find out that a friend and fellow poker player has been kicked out of the house by his wife. The slovenly owner of the apartment lets his friend, Felix, stay with him, and Felix turns out to be a neat freak. The comedy of the play come from the interaction of the two main characters.

The play was much fun. The actors all did a very good job, but the actor who played Oscar (the slob) had remarkable body control and comedic timing. Felix was more or less a straight man, and played that role very well. Felix even stayed in character during the intermission, during which time he cleaned the apartment with the help of two closely-supervised maids.

Fear, optical confusion, and laughter – another good Chicago day.