Finally! Coffee!

We made it to Chicago -- today was an easy drive compared to yesterday... yesterday was too much driving in the dark, and way too much driving without coffee. Fortunately, today we were able to sleep in a bit, and we only drove until about 3:30 this afternoon. And we had plenty of coffee to keep us happy. Yes, it was a good day...

I took some pictures this morning before we left St. Louis, because I thought the hotel was so cool:

The view outside our room, where you can see the roof of the old train shed. It might have been the original structure, because it looked pretty old and rusty...

The shopping center adjoining the hotel, built where the platform used to be. That display on the right side is hundreds of pages people sent to a St. Louis newspaper in 1985 when the train station was closed down. The paper asked people to share their memories of the station. A lot of the letters start out something like, "I worked at Union Station from 1940 to 1947..." and continue with stories about WWII soldiers. I saw one from a woman who worked at the station back in the 20's... it was just interesting to think about how I was standing there reading these letters in the same spot where travelers used to wait for their trains...

A mural of Harry Potter's nine and three quarters platform...

The lobby, which, judging from the old pictures we saw, looks pretty much the same as it did when the station opened in 1895...

Driving out of St. Louis this morning...


View of the John Hancock building from our hotel room in Chicago -- we're right across the street from the place... I sort of had to lie down on the windowsill to get a picture...

View of Michigan Avenue from our room...

Well, we need to go meet Eric for dinner soon, so that's it for now. Hope everyone is having a good week so far! Don't forget to drink plenty of Starbucks coffee and/or hot chocolate, as the case may be...