I Walked the Line(s)

While in Chicago, Hubby went to the Sears Willis Tower to check out the hours for the Skydeck as well as the price of admission. We needed to know if we needed to finish applying for that second mortgage in order have enough money to finish our trip and trek on home (we've been spending a lot of money).



Right there on the website was:



Buy your tickets ahead of time? Fast Pass? It's not like it's Disneyland!

Oh, yea of little brain (that would be us).

Turns out, Willis Tower is the number one tourist attraction in Chicago. Everybody and their grandmother goes to Willis Tower.

We realized this as we walked through the doors at 10AM and into the first line. That's right, I said FIRST.

We stood in line to ride the elevator DOWN to security.

We stood in line to go through the metal detectors.

We stood in line to get our "Yup, we're totally tourists and need the cheesy green screen photo that NO ONE would ever be able to pull off in real life" to commemorate the occasion.

We stood in yet another line to BUY the tickets.

Nope, we hadn't done that whole online thing. By this point we had noticed the people who had bought the fast pass, which was double the price, skipped right past all the lines (they still had to go through the metal detectors, but didn't have to wait in line to do it), and went directly to the elevators (or so we thought).

In the line waiting for tickets, we observed that you could still buy the fast pass tickets. Why would you want to do that? The next step is the elevators to go up. Hubby decided that whomever bought those tickets was paying regular price plus a stupid tax.

Oh, yea of little brain. . .

OK, we had our tickets. We're getting on the elevator now, right?

Nope. There was yet another line. We didn't know what it was for but we stood in it and watched the fast pass people zip right through. Should have paid the stupid tax.

The line was for a movie about why and how the Sears Tower was built and how it became the Willis Tower. Quite interesting actually, but I was ready for the views AND "The Ledge".

We left the movie theater only to stand in yet another line. We weren't the only ones in the movie theater and we sat in about 2/3 of the way back from the exit doors - the ones that lead to the elevator line!

Woot! Woot!

At 12:30, we were on the elevator - which went from the lower level to the 103rd floor in just about 60 seconds. Too cool!

We took lots of pictures of Chicago.

To the North-ish:




To the East-ish:




To the South-ish:

They force you to move counter clockwise so that "The Ledge" is the last thing you get to see.

"The Ledge" is a 4 X 8 X 8 box that juts out from one side of the tower - it is glass and 1,353 feet from the street. Freaky, but soooooo cool!!!





We had to stand in what we thought was the last line to go back down. You'd think having two elevators that should only take 2 1/2 minutes round trip (minute down, minute up, plus thirty seconds for people to move their a**es), we were in line an awful long time.

Remember that cheesy tourist picture? Yah, we had to stand in line to look at those. We didn't buy them - what a waste of a line.

We made it back to the car (which was only five blocks away) sometime after 2PM.

Silver Lining:

1. The views were amazing and "The Ledge" was a unique experience so it was totally worth the wait.


2. I always pray for patience and God was giving me lots of opportunities to practice. I think I passed with flying colors.