Chicago 2008 - 580 Feet, The Sherpa's Journal

Call me Darren Tenzing Norgay, Phyllis' personal Sherpa. We went up the Hancock tower which had a great view really a great view and was much more comfortable than the ferris wheel - shopped a bit in the water tower and spent several hours wandering up and down the Magnificent Mile before peeking in the Hershey store. This was a big mistake since we were hungry already. I fought down the urge to pick up a 25 lb Reeces peanut butter cup - but it was a close run thing.... can't help but wonder, how many calories do you burn lugging 25 lbs of chocolate and peanut butter around. Could there be a break even point? Carry it for 4 miles and then it's the same as a regular Reeces?



Then we made a dash back to Wrigleyville to get a picture of the stadium w/o the mob of people rain.wind etc. and made a stop at Uncle Fun — after getting turned around — Uncle Fun was one of the more bizarre stores I have ever been in, all kinds of old school bright plastic figurines, like the ones I remember at TG&Y when I grew up. Mixed in were a lot of reallly bizarre , 70’s style gadgets/post cards/ gross out gags. They were crammed all over the place, in drawers, file cabinets, everywhere. Then there were the books, some nice kids books, then there was the picture books of cat butts and the list goes on and on and on.



Stopped off at the old Marshall Fields/ Macy’s which was only about 2 blocks from our hotel, something we did not know until our trip was almost over. It had all kinds of old art-deco details and a number of incredible chandeliers. So what did we do at Macys? Bought luggage. Yes most people take luggage on trips - we aquire luggage on trips. What is a Sherpa without plenty to carry after all... If Only I had that new suitcase when we were at the Hershey store..



We dropped the suitcase off and headed to the Art Institute for one of their late evenings.., because it was free it was way too crowded and unfortunately nearly all of the Impressionist exhibits are temporarily closed — I assume because they are building the new wing and attaching it to millennium park, but still disappointing...., stopped at a Panda Express to grab a bite to eat (they have Dr. Pepper whoo-hooo!!) I don’t know why Chicago puts up occupancy signs - unless they are using a number system that I am not familiar with. As you may remember we had a seriously overfull trolley at the beginning of our stay, some overfilled Els and now we were in a restaurant that had more seating than their maximum occupancy, I assume the sign is just something they have to put up to humor the tourists.

Chicago 2008 - Wednesday - Lost Again

We're lost again. Well, turned around at least. I found the right street but picked the wrong direction, pretty much every direction I choose is wrong. We ate at Mickey D’s (McDonalds at home is Mickey D's here - people refer to it as Mickey D's even some of the signage says Mickey D) instead of a local today. P & I just cannot get over the fact that everyone seems to like their jobs, or at the very least they are serious about doing a good job. Businesses just don’t tolerate lazy as much as at home, good is average and exceptional is common- I guess it comes from the frenzied pace and the fact that there are some 2.5 million other people to take the job. I know we have been near the tourist territory, but in other tourist locales we don’t often have this consistent service from so many different businesses... it helps that anyone busy has 1-3 people expediting, just working the crowd smoothing things over and making them go as quickly as possible.

We rode the trolley again, hope to do that as little as possible. Yes it is free but it also uncomfortable, very crowded and quite a wait. We went to Shedd which was also really crowded, too crowded to truly enjoy. P was pretty disappointed in it all since a lot of the displays didn’t lend themselves to the kind of crowds and we were often just trying to avoid stepping on little kids. One interesting experience, we followed a Shedd curator who was giving a special tour to a couple of foreign professionals (I want to say German but have know idea why) while they talked shop from display to display. The German aquarium people had been to several other aquariums in the United States. It was interesting listening to all of the shoptalk, even if 90% of it was way beyond our understanding, what plants, what fish would go with what, etc. It was a little disappointing to find out that there weren't a lot of grand plans - three of the stingrays that P and I liked in the Amazon rain forest display were bought at a LOCAL PET STORE! Ha Ha, it was also odd to hear that the Amazon big fish display that we and many of the patrons were oohing and aahing over was basically a dumping ground for fish that were too aggressive or were trying to breed when they didn’t want them to breed. Also the reason there were so many stingrays was because this curator was a stingray person, while they have a lot of turtles in the displays because one of her coworkers is a real turtle guy.


We went to the Adler Planetarium next, which had a few neat l exhibits. The starry sky exhibit was interesting, presenter was good, but I (barely) drifted off before an elbow brought me back. A water taxi (much quicker and easier) and on to the Architectural river cruise which was wonderful. Our guide was Michael and he went quickly so we lost quite a bit, but still learned a lot about Chicago Architecture. The modern (Van der Rohe — boooring rectangle boxes) neo-modern (Goldberg and others I think) art deco, neo-gothic, nude (buildings that is – though we did see the old playboy hotel, now the Hard Rock Hotel)and others — plus all of the buildings and views in and an opportunity to sit down for a while.



Dinner at Uno's Pizza - you place your pizza order when you put your name on the waiting list, 45 minutes to an hour later you are seated, and your pizza arrives a few minutes after.... "It takes about an hour to ccok a pizza" quoth the hostess over and over and over again - I have no idea how she kept her cool, explaining the same thing to so many people. Deep dish completely unlike the deep dish pizza we usually think of, overflowing with ingredients - it was great. After dinner we waddled back to the El to ride back to hotel. Good thing we had to do some walking or we couldn't have enjoyed the evening dessert bar at the hotel.

Chicago 2008 - Monkey Butts and Cat Buttocks

After a good breakfast and a nearly uneventful trolley ride - our driver took time to make fun of a construction flag man who was flagging cars into the cones rather than away from them.

Anyway the Field museum was really something, Sue the T-Rex, gemstones, room after room of stuffed, positioned animals (fortunately virtually all prior to 1920 from the signage). I didn’t have any idea how many North American birds there were, room after room of various birds. There were displays of all kinds of animals, those you expect and animals that look just too small or too big to be what they are supposed to be.... There were a few amusing moments when we ended up following a family with three young children through the primate display. The youngest just kept pointing and saying “Monkey Butts” every time she saw a monkey butt. Siblings, parents, strangers, she was suddenly a docent specializing in the quantity and quality of monkey butt displays.
As if that wasn’t enough animal anatomy study, we came across a “spell” in the Ancient Egypt section. The spell promised, among other things that among to heal your cat. “May your Cat’s Buttocks be the as the Buttocks of the god that swims the water...” a little obscure for me, but I am sure the little girl loved it.
We then rode a water taxi from the Planetarium to the Navy Pier and took the skyline water tour. The stained glass museum – also at the Navy Pier – which was really something else, well over 100 stained glass panels of various styles and ages was great (and free) way to spend some time. After we ate, P got me on the Ferris Wheel, which was okay the first ¼ and last ¼ but the middle half was a little much. Even more frightening was the fact that the original Ferris Wheel was 100 ft taller (250 ft tall) and would hold some 1500 people at one time.
During a really crowded trolley ride I noticed with humor the 32 person maximum capacity sign — there were 22 people at our point and about 10 benches behind us plus probably 15 standing behind. We hopped off, then a quick El ride and we were back to the hotel... well not quite. We decided to stop at a CVS and pick up some bottled water and a few Dr. Peppers — I am not sure what Chicago has against Dr. Pepper but they don’t want to be a Pepper too! No Dr Pepper at the Deli in Field museum, none at the Mickey D’s at the Navy Pier (how can this be) none at the restaurant we ate at (not even that second cousin substitute Mr. Pibb). I couldn’t even find one at the little catch all stores in the Navy Pier — the ones that carry two AA batteries for $4, 20 ounce Cokes and Pepsis for $3.00 and $5.00 sticks of gum — even they couldn’t be bothered to carry the Dr.
Anyway P & I got off the El, went to the CVS and picked up what we needed, left, knowing that we were only a block or so from the hotel since we thought we knew where the hotel was in relationship to the CVS. Unfortunately we never considered that there might be two CVS stores within a block and a half of each other on either side of our hotel. So we spent our second consecutive evening wandering around the block for 20 minutes before seeing the other CVS store and finally getting our bearings. Just in case you are wondering, yes I turned left when I should have turned right - that makes up for Monday when I got lost on the other side of the same block turning right when I should have turned left.

Chicago 2008- Observations on Chicago Drivers

Chicago drivers are amazing improvisers. We watched in awe of the bus/trolley/car drivers maneuvering in, around and through traffic. Near as I can tell there seem to be four pillars of Chicago driving:

1) Drive like it’s a rental and you don’t care about damage.

2) Brakes are for stopping, not slowing. Don’t tap your brakes, don’t worry about those smooth stops we non-Chicagoans learned in driver education. You know, the ones that won’t spill a drop of your coffee. Chicago style driving means abrupt, bone jarring stops. I picture former bus drivers sitting in retirement homes…. “I remember one day I had a double double -a thing of beauty. I hit the breaks just right dislocated two shoulders on one stop then popped them back in on the next stop.” While you are at it, in Chicago no one runs red lights because cross-traffic starts moving on the yellows, if you are not in the middle of the intersection by the time the light TURNS green, you are going to hear a lot of horns. This takes us to pillar 3.

3) Horns are for honking. Honk if someone doesn’t get moving soon enough, honk to let someone know you are make some absolutely ridiculous u-turn on a double-decker trolley, honk if you are letting someone in, honk if you won’t, honk at the bicyclist who pays no attention to pedestrians or autos, honk to apologize to the person you didn’t see. About the only honks you don’t hear are the long drawn out I want to irritate you to no end honks.

4) Trust that the only people on the road are both crazy enough and skilled enough to adjust to your emergency stops, sudden u-turns, occasional forays into occupied incoming traffic, sudden creative impulses that turn lanes previously used for left turns into lanes for right turns (yes turning right from the left lane). Chicago driving is all improvisation, completely different from the urban highway, pedal-to-the-metal, 80 mile-an-hour bumper-to-bumper hope no-one stops plan your exit ramp 10 miles ahead driving in other places.

Chicago Vacation 2008 - Tornadoes and Cubs

Monday:

What a weird and wild ride. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, pulled into the covered parking lot and Mr. Mangin Sun was in a golf cart. .“Follow me” and he took off, I don’t know what modifications he made to that golf cart but our poor Prius struggled to keep up. He led us to a no parking spot “No Worries, this is best spot no spots available,” loaded us into the golf cart — Phyllis choose to ride in the behind, facing backwards, and off he went.. I looked behind and her knuckles were white as can be, hair is flying backwards (forwards for her) like something out of a cartoon After he passed several cars (on the left, Phyllis said one driver’s eyes were like saucers watching us steam by) he dropped us off, shaken but in one piece at the entrance.

We checked our luggage, went through the security - I can’t help but wonder if the shoes off security walk combined with our flip-flop wearing culture is creating an athlete's foot epidemic in airports. We sat in the Southwest Airlines section and listened to the United Airlines people say how bad the weather was in Chicago and how they didn’t have any flights in or out.... Needless to say we didn’t have any problems (Go Southwest!!!). . . off the plane, walk ,walk, walk down some stairs, walk some more to get to the hotel shuttle. This is our first experience with Chicago Driving (as distinctive in it’s own way as Chicago Pizza) and Chicago gas prices ($4.59 per gallon - $1.00 more than home).

A quick turn-around at the hotel and we are off on a a very warm very crowded ride on the El (P’s first experience with a subway) only to make it Wrigley 10 minutes late (the ballgame was an ESPN Monday night game and started an hour early). Nearly all is great 5 innings in, beautiful evening and a raucus crowd, many decked out in 70's garb -a whole group of Astro's fans managed to find some of those ugly old orange uniforms - when I notice something that looks a little like rain. Next thing you know the grounds crew is rolling out the tarp while rain falls in sheets. Meanwhile everyone more than about 12 rows in front of us all the way to the front is dashing for the concourse. I bet they regret spending extra money for closer seats.

Sheets and sheets of rain, then lightning, followed by a lot of wind and severe thunderstorm warnings while we watched from under the roof. The young lady sitting next to us received a message from her mother that there was a tornado in Naperville (false). I asked how far away that was, when she said it was 30 miles I explained that she didn't need to worry - We Okies know our Tornadoes. P can't help but laugh “how do we leave Oklahoma and 100 degree weather only to run into a tornado.”

Eventually the sirens stop, then start again so we give up and enter the maelstrom of hot wet masses fighting there way to the subway station — ironically we were dry as long as we stayed at the game and wet when we tried to leave. We were quite soaked by the time we got on the train for our 20 minute ride back to the hotel.... We got off at our stop, and.... Proceeded to walk around in the rain for 20 minutes all the while knowing that our hotel was a block away, but which way — P figured out that we were on the wrong side of the street, but let me lead us the wrong way, she was wet already and figured she might as well give me a “I Told You So.”

The next morning we learned they Cubs tried but failed to get the game restarted, discovered there were 3 tornadoes in greater Chicago, one on the Indiana side, and around 300,000 people without power. What A Day.