The Windy City

Just as I entered eastbound Interstate 80 from the Herbert Hoover Highway, beginning my trip to Chicago last month, I realized I forgot my camera. “Shit!” Speeding onto the freeway, I decided to keep going. There was no way I was driving to West Branch and turning back just to get my camera.

So began my first visit to the Windy City in five years. Though I flew through O’Hare when returning to Iowa, and made a pilgrimage to the Ikea in Bolingbrook for bookshelves last summer, I had not been to Chicago proper since taking the train there during my last spring break in college. Still unsure what to do after graduating, I wanted to gauge whether or not I wanted to live in a giant city. I decided I didn’t, and remember being particularly disgusted by the rows and rows of cookie cutter homes and apartments I saw in the western suburbs as the train approached Chicago in a light rain. Five years later, having lived in the metro area that bumped the Second City to third, I wanted to visit a friend, buy a pair of shoes, and reevaluate a classic American metropolis (one with mass transit).

I left around 6 o’clock in the morning, thinking rush hour traffic would be cleared up once I got into Chicagoland. Wrong. Having taken 80 to Interstate 55, traffic slowed somewhere near the Tri-State Tollway. It was just like being back in LA, slogging along the 405 through Venice and Santa Monica. I endured stop and go traffic for about 45 minutes before the worst of it transferred to the Dan Ryan. By the time I emerged from the subterranean garage at Millennium Park and looked up at the cloud-shrouded skyscrapers, it was 11 o’clock. I had about four hours to try doing everything I wanted to before meeting my friend.

The very first thing I wanted to do was see Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” at the Art Institute. Having grown up in Iowa, attended Grant Wood Elementary, and seen thousands of reproductions and imitations, I have wanted to see the real thing forever. Five years ago it was loaned to another museum, so I left the AI disappointed. Not this time, though. After wandering through the lower sections to get my $18 worth, I sauntered through the American Modern Art gallery and saw it hanging there, unassuming and without fanfare, in the middle of a wall. There was nothing to implicate it as one of the most iconic pieces of American art, which I thought was very humble and Iowan. I could not believe I was standing in front of it, yet felt strangely blasé. I mean, I’ve seen it a million times.

After admiring “Night Hawks” and spending way too much time in the postmodern and design galleries, I left the AI around 1 pm. Obviously, I was not budgeting my time well. I walked down Randolph, made a detour around the massive reconstruction of Wacker Drive, touched the sculpture commemorating the Haymarket Massacre, and enjoyed lunch and a few beers at the Haymarket Pub & Brewery. (I drank a Devil in the Wit City, a witbier, and a Black Wobbly Robust Porter.) Refueled, I headed for one of the main reasons I visited Chicago: the Adidas Originals store on Rush Street.

Here’s the short version of the story: I have always wanted a pair of retro Adidas shoes, and after a long walk and some serious compromising (shoe stores never have what I want in my size), I bought the pictured pair of Gazelles. Frankly, they are way too bright and flashy for my personality, but fuck it. Long live the seventies!

I returned to my car and embarked on an unplanned adventure through the North Side, trying to find the Whole Foods in Lincoln Park to meet my friend. Driving down Broadway and then Halsted, I wondered if I could live in Chicago. Probably, I thought.

I love how classic and compact it is, architecturally: rows of multistory buildings with restaurants and stores on the ground floor and apartments above. In terms of culture, food, and amenities, Chicago offers the kind of diversity I enjoyed and indulged in while living in SoCal. (The Mexican food is probably not as good in the Windy City, though.) The main attraction, though, is its walkability. Though it is a big city, the urban core and the low-rise districts surrounding the Loop are easily navigated on foot.

If I do get the itch to leave IC for the big city again, I will definitely go to Chicago. I love the Twin Cities, but Chicago offers something more. It is like a Midwestern version of San Francisco, only without the ocean, bay, bridges, and decent weather. (Then again, I have not been to Minneapolis/St. Paul in about 10 years, so I would need to make a visit to give the Cities a fair shake.) However, I can easily see myself growing weary of the big city once again. The crowds, the tourists, the concrete jungle in general. It would become claustrophobic after a while, and yearnings for IC and Iowa would inevitably resurface.

Thanks to my friend’s patience and the help of her fiancé, who I picked up on a street corner to guide me to Whole Foods, we finally met up. For dinner they took me to an excellent vegan restaurant, Karyn’s Cooked, on Wells Street. Stuffed full of meat- and animal byproduct-free goodness, I followed them to their place in the western ‘burbs on the Ronald Reagan Tollway.

I’m not a big fan of toll roads, or giving Illinois money just to get from A to B. (You’re welcome, Illinoisans, for my help in bailing your asses out.) But, frankly, it was nice to drive on a wide, well (and freshly) paved stretch of road. Especially at night, and I was astonished to find reflective Stimsonite markers placed in recessed grooves along a highway near my friend’s house. I could not resist the urge to drift over the centerline and feel the gentle bump-bump-bump against my tires, warning me I was too far over. (Botts’ dots are something I really miss about California.)

The next morning I paid a visit to the nearby Trader Joe’s and decided to head back to IC. That was my trip to Chicago. It did not last long, but I will be visiting again, soon. My friend is getting married in Evanston, so I may chill in Chicago the day before or after. I’ll make sure to remember my camera.