Walking And Walking And Walking The Loop

...Continued from yesterday  
    On Saturday morning  Claire had to work, so Miguel swung by and picked us up  at our hostel and we drove to  nearby Logan Square for brunch at a restaurant we like called The Revolution Brewery that has a "Workers of the World Unite!"  theme:

                                                                                         ...the beer taps are shaped like raised fists.

    Tom and I ordered my usual, two sunny-side up eggs, served with sides of  home fries,  the warmest, freshest fluffiest biscuit that ever accompanied two sunny-side up eggs and, the optional substitution for bacon, spinach.

   
    The spinach was very tasty and worked amazingly well as a side to the eggs.
    Miguel ordered sunny-side up eggs over pork hash, which he said was also very good.

   After breakfast Miguel dropped us back at our hostel from whence we decided o head back downtown.
    Since the elevated train (the el)  stop closest to our hostel was closed for repairs, we walked about a mile to the next el stop.
    We rode the el to The Loop, got off at Monroe Street and from there made our way to Michigan Avenue.
    As we passed the Chicago Cultural Center we decided to pop back in and have another look around

    After the Cultural Center we headed north on Michigan Avenue and started walking. And walking.  And walking.
 

Millennium Park


















The skating rink below The Bean

   By the time we crossed the Chicago River, the gateway to The Magnificent Mile, we were moving through a dense sea of people, shoppers and tourists like us out for a Saturday afternoon in December.

    We stopped to admire the beautiful architecture of the Fourth Presbyterian Church:

    ...and we wanted to go inside but there was a wedding, so we crossed the street to Water Tower Place and strolled around inside the shopping mall where we stopped to admire the beautiful architecture

of some awesome-looking cupcakes!

...which reminded us that it was almost lunchtime.
    So we hopped a bus headed back down Michigan Avenue towards the Loop, where we'd decided to seek out some lunch.
    Once again we began zigzagging the streets off Michigan Avenue, but this time on the very first zig, and without even looking for it, we ran smack into....a Chicago-Style hot-dog place!  (See yesterday's post).
   

    The name of this hot-dog place was American Dog and it was tucked away in the one square inch of The Loop that we must have overlooked yesterday when we were scouring around for a hot-dog.
    Anyway, the dogs here were good,

(Note the requisite "coupla two, tree, sport peppers" [See yesterday's post])

...as were the fries.

    In fact, I'd say the food was slightly more photogenic than yesterday's fare (see yesterday; post).
    Still, I noticed that the relish on this dog lacked the distinctive bright green hue of the relish on yesterday's dog, the relish that is, according to Miguel, the hallmark of an authentic Chicago-style dog.
    So maybe it was the ordinary-looking relish, or maybe it was the fact that this was our second Chicago hot dog and so lacked the bright shining thrill of our first the day before, but I'd say the Gold Coast dogs had a slight edge over the American Dog dogs.   
   But then again, maybe no dog will ever be as good as that first dog.
    Anyway, after lunch we walked back to Michigan Avenue and were basically at the same spot we'd started out at, near the Chicago Cultural Center.  So once again, we turned north on Michigan and started re-walking the same route towards the Magnificent Mile.

We passed more skaters,

...a wedding party in front of the Chicago Art Institute - I don't know how those girls didn't freeze!

....and a Ferguson demonstration in front of Nordstroms, blocking the entrance so that no one could get in or out of the store.

The police started arresting people.

    One exasperated-looking young lady shopper standing next to me remarked, "It's okay if they want to demonstrate, but why'd they have to do it in front of Nordstroms?!"
    We moved on, and by now the sun was setting and the lights were beautifully twinkling above the crowd.

    We decided to walk out to the lake.

    To be continued....