Day 3 - Dad Fest!
On Sunday, after packing up our tents, scarfing down apple strudels, cinnamon rolls and yogurt, boarded the van and went to church!

Our plan was to attend Willow Creek Church, in Chicago, IL.  None of us knew what to expect in terms of size - I had simply stated that we were attending a mega-church.  Pulling into the parking lot was akin to going to the fair!

You can visit their website here:  http://www.willowcreek.org

There were thousands of people outside the complex, enjoying festivities for their Father's Day event, called "Dad Fest":  bungee-trampoline-jumping, fun-slides, dodgeball, golf driving-range, car show, motorcycle show, and every other Dad-ish thing you could hope for!  We had to park in a grassy median due to the lack of available parking, and the walk from our van to the building took over 15 minutes!

Once inside, we found our seats and the worship began.  As a tribute to Father's Day, the church had 50 dad's playing acoustic guitar on the stage.  Afterwards, Bill Hybels gave a fantastic lesson on the need for strong, manly, courageous fathers!  The entire service took over 2 hours.

After checking out some of the festivities, we boarded the van and took off for Chicago!

If you've never been to downtown Chicago, you must put it on your Bucket List!  Amazing architecture, large pieces of art, high-energy festivities, street-entertainment, corner preachers... an experience unlike any other!  We visited a small section of Millennium Park where we saw "the bean" (officially called Cloud Gate), a live symphony, and other artistic pieces.

The biggest drawback was the traffic, which (combined with the long church service) put us about two hours behind schedule.  We luckily had clear traffic all the way down to Kentucky where our host families waited for us.  We arrived at 10:30pm, safe, tired-but-excited, ready for a good night's sleep!