Flying Adventures with Frank & Jolene: Chicago

It seems that everytime we have friends visit, we wind up flying down the Chicago lakeshore with them. It is a pretty cool view. From our home airport, the trip takes about a half hour each way. Naturally, you have to be a little careful since you are flying under the floor of the Chicago O'Hare airspace, so you need to watch your altitude. There's also always the possibility that you're not the only plane out there sightseeing so you do need to watch for other air traffic. Other than that...well, you judge from the photographs.

This is leaving our home airport at Waukegan, Illinois. Waukegan, or UGN, is a great little Class D. It's far enough away from Chicago that traffic isn't a problem and close to Wisconsin.

The first sight you come to as you travel South is the Bahai Temple. This is just gorgeous. Here is what it looks like from afar.

Here is a closeup

As you continue South, the Chicago skyline comes into view. Here you see the tapered sides of the John Hancock building and ints exoskeleton and, in the distance, you see the Sears Tower. Recently the Sears Tower was purchased by the Willis Company from the UK. Thus, Chicago residents now refer to the Sears Tower as "The Big Willie".

Here's our favorite Chicago picture. Here you see the Chicago River. Originally, the Chicago River emptied into Lake Michigan. This caused an enormous outbreak of disease at the turn of the century because the Chicago meatpacking industry was dumping their byproducts, offal and such, into the River which was, in turn, dumping into the Lake where Chicagoans were drawing their drinking water. Duh! In 1900, engineers "reversed" the flow of the River, cut a canal and sent the River into the Mississippi. Naturally, St. Louisians were less than thrilled about this as now all of the Chicago garbage flowed past their fair City. Begrudgingly, Chicagoans then built a waste treatment plant to clean up the effluent.