Ordinarily, cities daunt me. I don’t like being a stranger in a big place where you have to move quickly. But Chicago is familiar enough that I was disappointed that I had only one day slated there. I figured it was more likely that I would get back to Chicago sometime and be a tourist there, so I had spent a leisurely week of late summer wandering the rest of the state. Unlike John Steinbeck, who kenneled Charley during his stay in Chicago, Tamu and I had found a place to stay together in a budget, dog friendly hotel on Michigan Avenue for our first night, and then made plans to splurge a little on the second. So as I started my day in the city, Tamu came with me. It began with breakfast at Navy Pier, which is Illinois’ top tourist attraction, welcoming 9 million visitors each year, including us.
Because I have many friends who have lived or continue to live in Chicago, I relied on local advice for most of my day. To see the city, I booked a cruise along the Chicago River to take in the architecture. It was a gorgeous day, and with each turn, I had a new favorite building.
Not only was it a convenient way to move around and have guidance, but by seeing the built environment, you see how Chicago grew, both in size and in influence, and also as a symbol of American growth and commerce. Later that year, I would read Devil in a White City, which spends some of its time on skyscrapers and how builders experimented with foundations. But gliding along with eyes in the sky, the buildings–like the city–seemed eternally solid and ambitious, reaching always higher. The city of the Big Shoulders.
It was the city where my immigrant grandfather originally settled, where he grew to hate butchering because he had to hear the lambs cry, and where he studied to become a railroad engineer. So, I suppose my family origin story belongs in Chicago. Once he had a steady job on the railroad, my grandfather decided to live four hours away in Toledo, a smaller place where he would meet his bride and raise his kids while commuting back and forth to Chicago by train for work. I could imagine his history in Chicago’s history, at least part of it, and wonder how my life would have been different had I moved there as I have been tempted to do at various points in my life.
The folks on the cruise were friendly with Tamu, even when he tried to steal beer off them. He and I settled in at the Kimpton Allegro for our final night, a wonderful art deco boutique hotel where we spent our last evening in Illinois. Once we checked in there, I took back off to explore the city on foot. Somebody was filming a movie that week and there were a lot of detours for automobile traffic. I was not discovered despite my lurking around.
With Tamu enjoying the air conditioning, I headed up to Millenium Park and Cloud Gate, the mirrored sculpture known to most people as The Bean. It had been opened in 2004, so this was my first visit. I hung around Millenium Park, exploring the area and people watching. It offered weddings and quinceaneras and loads of interesting people and sites. Then I headed off for food and shopping around the Chicago Loop, as friends offered advice on Facebook for things to see and places to eat–more places than I had appetite.
I stopped back for a check on Tamu (and a walk along the film location to see if he would be discovered), and then headed back to Millenium Park in the evening for an open air concert from the Chicago Lyric Opera. My timing had been very lucky because the Lyric Opera performs this concert just after Labor Day to provide previews to the various works they are staging in the upcoming season. I sat out on the lawn and enjoyed beautiful music in perfect weather in a wonderful city. It had been a good vacation, offering me a chance to catch up on rest and clear my head from my daily life. I was not entirely ready to head back, but could not delay further, so I soaked up the summer evening of music with delight.
I spent my last night at our indulgent hotel, watching Argo and packing for the 12 hour trip back the next day. It seems incomprehensible to me now that it would take me nearly seven years to write about this trip, as I started the blog that year, and the trip had been so full of gems and kindness and rest. At a bakery in Galena, the following saying had been posted: The Journey Awakens the Soul. I pondered that as I sat under the stars that night, listening to Wagner and Verdi and considering what I wanted next back on the East Coast. The Illinois trip remained memorable even as time passed and I lost myself in work and life. Chicago still waits there, as solid as ever, when I am ready to go back.