18 June – 23 June
Saturday:
We’re starting the last leg of our trip today with a short flight to Chicago. We’re flying at 2.40pm and spend the morning trying desperately to get everything into our suitcases. We’ve been consistently dumping off stuff as we go and we’ve not bought much since our last flight, but still our stuff seems to have about doubled. Once we’ve got it all squished in we head straight to the airport to drop off our beloved Dodge Charger and wait for our flight.
Flying time is about 4 hours but we lose 2 hours in the process, so it’s close on 9pm when we pick up our bags and hop a train into town. The first thing we notice about Chicago is that most people on the train are wearing shorts or dresses. This is a most promising sign. When we finally emerge from the station into downtown it’s near 10pm, but it’s a wonderful, balmy evening.
It’s clear from the start the Chicago is a ‘proper’ city and I can’t wait to explore, but for now we need to find our hotel. It’s nicer than we expected (how often does that happen?) and in a good location. We dump off our bags and head straight out to try to find some food before everything shuts. The hotel recommends a nearby pub/restaurant, which does the trick.
Sunday:
I’m not sure whether to blame the 2-hour time difference or to admit that we’re just plain lazy, but we’re late getting up and even later getting going. Out on the street we find a café to get some late breakfast/early lunch (but certainly not brunch).
We’ve bought tickets to see the Cubs take on the Yankees at Wrigley Field tonight. The game is not until 7pm, but we figure we may as well start heading in that direction on foot and see what we see along the way. Our walk takes us across the river and along the Magnificent Mile. You don’t think of Chicago as being a beach town, but there’s a beach pretty much in the city centre. We go to take a look and find this:
It’s perfect: complete with soft sand and lapping waves. The only thing missing is the salt. This is of course Lake Michigan, but it’s so vast that it could be the sea. We walk up past some more beaches and then cut into Lincoln Park. There’s a soccer game going on, but I have to steer Nick away as he’s starting to want to shout at the players (and the ref). There’s a zoo here too. It’s free, so we take a quick look in.
After another couple of miles walking through pleasant suburban streets we find ourselves at Wrigley Field.
We’re a bit early, so we find a spot for a couple of beers before heading into the game. We’re amused to find that all the buildings surrounding the stadium have built mini-grandstands on their roofs to accommodate more fans.
The Cubs lose (this is to be expected, I believe), but the atmosphere is fantastic. Every couple of minutes someone is walking the aisles with a tray of beer, hotdogs, peanuts… We partake of more junk food than should be legal.
When the game is over (we’ve worked out that games in pretty much all American sports take at least 3 hours to play out, regardless of actual playing time) we catch the ‘L’ back to our hotel.
Monday:
It’s another late start today, but Nick has done some homework and found us a good diner to get a late breakfast. It’s a twenty-minute walk away through the skyscrapers of downtown. Despite its impressive skyline Chicago is somehow never claustrophobic: the streets are broad, clean and not too crowded. We walk past the Willis Tower (previously known as the Sears Tower) – at a quarter mile high it’s the tallest building in Chicago. It’s so tall the top of it is disappearing into the clouds.
The diner is an excellent spot and we find out that it also marks the start of the legendary Route 66. This place is steeped in tradition and one of them continues today: on arrival we’re offered milk duds (a kind of chocolate) and doughnut holes (er, the dough that is cut out of the doughnut to make the hole).
Once we’ve stuffed our faces we walk to the Architecture Foundation Store to book a river cruise for this afternoon. We’ve got a couple of hours to kill, so we take a walk through Millennium Park, the highlight of which is the bean (officially known as Cloud Gate), which offers up crystal clear but at the same time wonderfully bent reflections of the skyline.
It’s time for our boat tour. It takes us up all three branches of the Chicago River while our tour guide explains the history and architecture of the buildings we’re passing. It’s a beautiful summer afternoon to be out on the water and it’s a great way to see the city.
Back on dry land we spend a bit of time checking out the shops on the Magnificent Mile. It seems a shame to look at all these skyscrapers without going into one, so we take the lift up to the 96th floor (eek!) of the John Hancock Centre. You can pay to go to the 94th floor observatory, or you can go to the bar on the 96th floor for free. You can guess which one we picked. The views are of course stupendous. The best ones, strangely enough, are from the women’s restrooms.
After a couple of beers we come down to ground level and find a great little Mexican place for some food before tackling the walk back to our hotel.
Janet adds: I’m not looking forward to my waistline finding out what I’ve been up to in Chicago…
Tuesday:
The Architecture Foundation talked us into another tour, so there’s no long lie-in for us this morning. The elevated railway (known as the ‘L’), which loops through downtown, is Chicago’s signature. The tour today is a guided ride/walk around this loop. We learn the history of the railway and get some more insight into the city.
It’s blazing hot and humid and after the 2-hour tour we’re about ready for a sit-down and some lunch. We’re tackling the Art Institute of Chicago this afternoon. It’s vast and somewhat disjointed. Rooms keep appearing out of nowhere and we move from Impressionism to furniture to armor and then on to modern American paintings. It is a good collection and there are some classics here.
Our legs are taking a bit of strain and we probably don’t quite do it justice, but we do pass a couple of hours here. Once we’re done we catch a train to Wicker Park. I’ve heard that this is the ‘cool’ neighbourhood – supposedly full of boutique shops and interesting restaurants. It’s more like a smaller, rundown Camden so we don’t linger long. It’s been a long day so we pause at the hotel for a wee rest before heading back out again.
We walk for miles in search of a decent bar but in the end all we can come up with is a dodgy pub. Unwilling to risk our stomachs on another beer and too tired to face the walk we catch a train back and get some food near the hotel. As we’re coming out of the restaurant we notice that it’s been raining a bit, but think nothing of it. Back in our room we see on the news that Chicago has apparently been lashed with violent storms this evening, shutting the airport and knocking out the power to many houses. Somehow we managed to miss all that…
Janet adds: This is the historic moment that Nick discovered ribs better than those from Café Sol in Greenwich.
Wednesday:
We’re leaving Chicago today, which means hauling our suitcases over to the car hire place to pick up our wheels. We get a perfectly adequate Honda, but I can tell by his face that Nick is mourning the Dodge.
We clear the city driving south and pass briefly into Indiana. At the supermarket where we stop to pick up some groceries Nick’s driver’s license causes a bit of a stir: ‘well, will you look at that? I’ve never seen anything like it.’ Slightly worrying, but nevermind. We’re already leaving Indiana and entering Michigan.
We’re curious to see more lake beaches so we head up the east coast of Lake Michigan a way. This coast is peppered with quaint beach towns and we stop at South Haven. Again we’re surprised by how much of a proper beach it is, complete with a pier, lighthouse and kite-surfers.
I keep licking my lips to taste the salt that isn’t there. It isn’t cold today, but it’s’ windy enough to keep us out of the water so we settle for a walk along the beach and through the town instead.
We get back onto the interstate to find somewhere to sleep for the night and find a motel in Paw Paw (good name for a town, but here are no paw paws in sight).
Thursday:
Today we’re cutting across Michigan towards Detroit. We’ve come for one reason and one reason only: Motown – Hitsville USA. It’s still in the original clapboard house where Berry Gordy founded Motown in 1959.
We arrive just in time to join a tour of the museum and studio. The tour is fantastic fun. Our guide is full of stories and tidbits and keeps breaking into song with most of the group singing along. We even get a demonstration of the echo chamber - a key feature of that Motown sound.
He talks/sings us through the exhibits and then leads us through Barry Gordy’s apartment (complete with original furniture). We also get a tour of the office and the control room, where the floor is scuffed up from producers in platforms counting in the musicians. Finally we’re lead into the studio, which is in the original garage of the house. This has also been preserved as it was, complete with the Steinway which featured on many Motown hits.
Of course, the tour wouldn’t be complete without getting to give it a go. Us ladies put our hands on our hips and bumble our way through ‘Stop, in the name of love’ while the men tackle ‘My Girl’, complete with the Temptations walk. Nick manages to keep the rhythm for a while but then (like all white people) loses it.
It’s been fabulous. There’s nothing else we want to see in the city, so we don’t venture any further into Detroit. We head instead for the US/ Canada border at Port Huron/Sarnia. We’re expecting this to take a while and we’ve booked a motel in Sarnia to be on the safe side.
To our surprise we’re through in about 5 minutes and get checked in early. It’s not a bad thing – we’re out of clean pants so we use the time at the Laundromat. I take advantage of the quiet street to go for a run – got to justify hauling the trainers around with us.
Janet adds: Motown was the best tour ever. I now believe that ALL black people can sing. Does this make me racist?
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