US Road Trip - day 3

Oct 8,9 2005

I woke up late next morning and so did Manisha and Kaustub. I called up Bhuvana and let her know that I would be coming to Chicago in the evening. I had lunch at Manisha's and then started for Chicago late in the afternoon on 57N all the way to Chicago. The first sight of Chicago downtown was absolutely thrilling. I took a right on some random and drove on until I hot the LakeShore Drive. I was driving beside Lake Michigan and the azure waters were amazing. The traffic jam on LakeShore drive let me keep a slow pace and enjoy the skyline and the lake view. I called up Bhuvana and notified her of my whereabouts. The sun was about to set and I could not resist taking some photos. I parked at the Navy Pier and decided to take a walk around.

Chicago skyline from Navy Pier is in my opinion, simply the best skyline you can see in the united states. I managed to take a few photos before the sun set. I walked around Navy Pier and found that the last sight seeing boat trip was leaving in 5 minutes. I could not resist the idea of taking a ride on Lake Michigan and got aboard. The Chicago skyline looks fantastic from the boat. With the boat shaking and all that it was very hard to take a long exposure shot of the skyline but I managed to get one decent one.

I fell in love with Chicago that night. I wanted to see Sears tower that night but it closed by the time I got off of the boat ride. I called up Bhuvana and she guided me to her place using google maps to guide her. Her house was in Evanston, near the Northwestern University campus. It was nice to meet Bhuvana after so many days. We chatted about this and that and I slept.

In the morning we decided to pay a visit to sears tower. We drove by lake Michigan and took a photo together. After some driving around we found a cheap parking spot about five minutes walk from Sears tower. There was a small queue to get up the tower. It felt wonderful going in the lift - my ears popped. The view from Sears towers was beyond description. Its only from here that you can truly appretiate how large lake Michigan is. The shadows on lake michigan formed by the clouds look like little islands and the city looks fabulous.

After dropping Bhuvana back home, I started eastwards. I had already decided my next stop - it was going to be at Arvind's at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. This would be a very brief overnight stop. The very next morning I had planned to drive to New York and meet Rahul.