Fall Amtrak Vacation Trip 2004: |
A Bird's Eye View Of Sweet Home Chicago!!! |
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004 |
I walked a few blocks over to the Sears tower where when you walk in, you go through security screening before being allowed to go inside and buy tickets. Afterwards, you go up a short elevator, buy your ticket, then watch a quick video presentation about the City Of Chicago inside a nice theater. You then walk through a series of museum pieces dedicated to the Sears Tower before entering an express elevator that takes you up to the 110th floor in less than 2 minutes thanks to it’s 18mph speed as it races up the building! My ears popped at least 3 or 4 times on the elevator ride up so I would recommend chewing some gum if you can to alleviate the minor pain associated with your ears popping! Once I got to the top, the view from over 1500 feet up is worth a billion bucks! I’ve never seen anything quite like this, thus I took several slides. It is possible to see 4 states from atop the Sears Tower on a clear day, those being Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. Please Note, these photos are quite large, but I set them up this way because there was simply so much in them that leaving them smaller would have left out too much detail. These pictures will take a little time to load if you don't have a high-speed connection. Enjoy... |
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The Chicago River, Amtrak & Metra Coach Yards and lots of other stuff is visible from here, this view is looking South. |
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Looking North, from The Sears Tower, you are surrounded on all four sides by windows, thus allowing photos from all angles. |
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Lake Michigan in this view looking West. The road along the lake is Lakeshore Boulevard. |
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Looking Northeast, you can see the John Hancock Building among other things. |
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Looking Southeast, you can see Meigs Field Airport and Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears play on the right side of this photo. |
After spending about 40 minutes in the Sears Tower, I called my Mom on my cell phone only to find that service at the top of the building is hit or miss because your simply too high! I went back down to the ground level and headed back to Union Station, I ate a quick dinner at McDonald’s before getting my luggage back, (ended up costing another $12.00) then went over to the South Gates and waited near Gate C for boarding for Train #50 – The Cardinal, as the next leg of my trip was fast approaching... |
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