Day 2 - Lions International Convention

Day 2 (Wednesday, 27 June 2007):

After an expensive breakfast, we went to get our photo taken with the New international President and his wife; I'll have to post said photo when we get it.

Those who can walk had no problem getting onto the busses. Those in chairs had to wait for the lift to hoist them into the rear of the bus. The bus driver clearly had never tried using the lift before and he was just above the level of reading instructions. The first man on had to jockey his chair around and the lift guy tried to hoist him without putting the rear safety bar up. He was able to get this fellow onto the bus. The next person in line refused to go and told me to go on. It was a bit difficult getting the scooter on and when I left the lift, I realized there was very little room to maneuver. I ended up turning my scooter a bit and then there was no further room for the next fellow. We left for Lions International Headquarters. Returning to the hotel was little better…

Lions International Headquarters is a very nice two story building. We got a "self guided" tour and were given boxes a bit like a TV controller in that it had buttons but also had a headset attachment. As you approached each of 17 areas, you could type in that area's number and hear a description. It was very nicely done and featured the eight official languages of Lionism.

The Cluster Fuck of getting the scooters on/off the handicap lift

Lunch at Buca di BEPPO (and a treat this was, especially the chocolate cake!)

We (Kathie and I) went to a very nice Italian restaurant near the hotel called "Buca di BOPPO" where I had a great bowl of spaghetti. Kathie had pizza. For desert, we split a wonderful piece of extra chocolate cake. The cake cost more than either of our meals and it was worth the price.

How good was the cake?

It was better than the cakes at the original "Roses'" in Southwest Portland Oregon

It was even better than my Maternal Grandmother's chocolate cake.

It was really good!

To the top of the Sears Building!

Our next trip was to the top of the Sears Building. I tried to talk Kathie into going the next day but she was adamant and that was a good thing. Anyway, I left the scoter with the concierge and thumped my way out of the hotel and to the curb. There, we took a cab to the Sears Building.

We told the driver we were tourists and were going to the Sears Building. That alone should have told him "park in front and nearest to the 'Tourist Entrance'". Instead, the son of a bitch parked us around the corner of the building and I had to hobble more than a block to get to the entrance.

We went into the tourist entrance and bought our tickets (US$ 25 and change). Then, we had to go through a metal detector. The wand man told me to go around and I did. He checked me with the metal detector wand and seemed miffed when I told him I had a metal plate in my ankle. I didn't mean to "step on his toes" and I suppose he has seen his share of gimped up visitors.

We were then directed through the handicapped entrance to the viewing room where we go to see a brief film on the history of the building of the Sears Tower. It was quite informative.

We took the elevator up to the viewing room and slowly made our way around it. We were both amazed at the size of our the buildings and Lake Michigan. I was in awe of the size of that glorious fresh water inland sea (Lake Michigan) as well as the Chicago River. We took a picture of boats on the Chicago River and an interesting shaped building that was boat accessible to the river. I could picture people going to work via power boat.

We returned to the hotel and had a much better taxi driver.

After that, we had dinner and crashed for the night.