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Just returned from a college Horticulture Club trip to Chicago. First, we visited the Aquascape HQ (a company that designs aquatic gardens) before we checked into our hotel. That was Friday. On Saturday, we visited the Chicago Botanical Gardens. My room mate, (I shared a room at the hotel w/ her) a young woman who was a fellow club member, and I wondered through several sections of themed gardens, where we took loads of pics. We only covered the Bonsai Collection, the English Walled garden, the English Oak Meadow, the Native plant garden, and the Sensory garden. What we covered was only HALF of the main island that connected to the visitor's center/main entrance. We had lunch there together and I bought souvenirs from the gift shop. The Chicago BG is made up of islands that are connected by bridges and the entire place sits in the middle of a man made lake! If you've been to/heard of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, this BG in Chicago is twice its size! it's impossible to see the entire garden in one day, you'd need two days to do so. The garden is 385 acres! so, moving on...After that, we visited the Cantigny Park where my room mate and I took pics of their gardens. There happened to be an art bazaar going on so I bought a couple sets of earrings from two different booths. On the way back to the hotel the bus stopped in a cluster of restaurants and fast food for dinner, then we returned to the hotel for the day. On Sunday, (our last day in Illinois) we visited the Morton Arboretum. One of our instructors took us on a little 1hr tour and picked out certain trees and talked about them. I took lots of pics of the grounds. I also bought souvenirs at their gift shop too. We arrived back at the college at 5:00pm. The drive to and from was about 5hrs each.