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Chicago Day Trip, Boat to Soldier Field

·Soldier Field·#boating#lake michigan#chicago#soldier-field#football
A smiling person in a blue shirt on a boat with a distant city skyline under a clear blue sky.

Day trip into Chicago, split down the middle: the lake in the morning, the Bears in the afternoon.

We motored out of the harbor early, easing past rows of boats rafted in so close you could step across them, then through the channel and out onto Lake Michigan. From a couple miles offshore the whole skyline stacks into one line — Hancock dead center, Sears off to the south, everything behind it going pale blue in the haze. A lone sailboat crossed in front of downtown and made the buildings look even bigger than they are.

Then Soldier Field for the game. The stadium's been the Bears' home since 1924, but the rebuild only reopened last year, so it's this odd thing now — old colonnades with a new bowl dropped inside, sitting right there on the Museum Campus. Official count was 61,535, and it felt like it, all of them yelling from the opening kickoff. Our seats were high enough to read the CHICAGO painted across the end zone below us.

Afterward, back out on the water. The sun dropped low and burned a stripe down the chop most of the way in.

A city skyline with numerous skyscrapers rises across a wide expanse of water with several sailboats.Distant city skyline with numerous skyscrapers along a large body of water under a clear blue sky.Two people on a boat's deck with a radar dome above, facing a cityscape and marina under a blue sky.A view from a white boat of a river lined with trees, docked boats, and a distant city skyline.Two people on a boat in a marina with other boats, a city skyline, and trees under a clear sky.Blue water fills the foreground with a city skyline and a sailboat under a clear blue sky.An American football game in progress on a green field with "CHICAGO" in the end zone, surrounded by stadium crowds.A bright orange and yellow sunset over the ocean, with the sun reflecting a shimmering path on the dark water.

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