C H I C A G O

I hate to presume upon anybody interested enough to visit here, but it's 1:40am, I'm running on a disasterous sleep deficit, and I have a cataclysmic amount of school work to be done before Friday. I wrote full journals each night in Chicago, the entirety of which is below. If you want to know what the trip was like, read on and may you find it engaging, and may you vicariously experience and enjoy some of the wonder and fun of that time. I will look this over and hopefully tighten it up later this week, but for now here's the most direct, complete and representative account of the glorious weekend in Chicago...

Oh oh oh!! I have a bunch of cell phone pictures too, which I took partially with the goal of including them in this blog. I'll do all I can to get them in here soon, and that should be SWEET.

9/21/06

So, today started out at home, sleeping in comfortably till 9:30, eating the heartiest breakfast in recent Johnian history (courtesy of the amazing Mrs. Behrens), and driving the van over to mow Complete Fitness at 10:30. What is normally a long mow became interminable, and at last, out of gas and out of trimmer line, and way out of time, I had to leave with edges still untrimmed, and basically no time to pack. But shower and pack I did, in a diligent frenzy. Katie and Sarah arrived as I was finishing, and we headed out in the Mazda not too long after our DDT* of 1:30. To the airport we drove, listening to Jars’ new album with the sweet sweet subwoofer. The flight and all went hitchlessly, except for one WOEFUL incident. Man! It’s yes, funny, but also it was really a downer. Probably a downer and a half. I had purchased a Dr.Pepper while waiting at the gate, and it had reached that perfect state of coldness and just the right amount of carbonation. It was not quite half finished, and I was enjoying it immensely. Then the dude at the end of the jetway said they wouldn’t let me take it on the plane, even though I’d bought it AFTER SECURITY inside the terminal!! So I had to give him that perfect, perfect Dr.Pepper and walk away with this literal hole in my mind and stomach where it should have been. Man, I kid you not, it was rough. But, they had Dr.P on the flight (bless you Southwest Airlines!!), so that about 85% made up for it. Arg.

So, we got to Chicago after a very short flight, got our bags, and headed for the CTA, or “El”—the train/subway system which would take us to the grand and glorious “Ohio House” hotel, our cheapest-of-the-cheap residence for the next 3 nights. The ride was good, and felt very city-like and American, as we clacked through Chicago’s odd juxtaposition of residential and industrial buildings. The big factories and warehouses and train yards and mysterious back lots and rusty equipment have always intrigued me, and riding the train was a good way to see a lot of that.

We had a bit of a walk once we got off at Grand Street, and after working out hard the day before and mowing and trimming Complete, my arms were in quite a tizzy. But I made it, and the Ohio House turned out to be a very competent, and even pleasant, cheap hotel. After getting settled in our respective rooms, Sarah, Katie and I walked about for awhile, marveling at the number of expensive restaurants around. We stopped at an Eckerd and I got some breakfasty food, and a little later we swung into a White Hen pantry, where I found WINTERGREEN SUGAR-FREE ALTOIDS!! Pretty much one of the best mints I could possibly come across. Man, the joys of a mint collection! And they’re really good, too—not so strong they burn craters in your tongue like the peppermint ones. Happy happy!

Nate Dogg Cold Six Packs To Go called to let us know he was close to the hotel (he had to get a later flight ‘cause of a meeting he was at in Philly), so we hoofed it back, got him settled in the room, and headed out to forage for dinner. We foraged our way to the ORIGINAL Unos Pizzeria, where we waited for a good while and ended up ploughing through copiously-cheesed deep-dish Chicago pizza, talking, laughing, and banging knees across the very narrow booth. It was a cool place, and the pizza was good, though my richness tolerance was soon being pushed. The Code Red Mt. Dew was great, though, and left me high (and probably really irritating) for the rest of the night.

Which we spent walking down to the lake and then wandering around SSCCCHwanky areas of downtown. SSCCCHwanky here representing Sarah’s gratuitiously-Pittsburghian pronunciation of “swanky.” The lake was cool and we walked through this awesome little park with a panoramic view of the lit-up city from a square of perfect green grass with the lake to our backs and the wind blowing at us. Then as we walked down a street inland, I took us up this stairway, thinking it would be a cool little patio thing to walk on for a bit before going back down to the ground. But it turned out that THAT was the level that the city was on! I could hardly believe it, and we spent a lot of time walking around exploring it, but a whole ton of the city around the lakefront and river is actually two levels. The lower one seems to be mostly roads and parking garages, and then the upper level, very much of which is just concrete on steel pillars, is where everybody walks and shops and drives on 8-lane roads stretching for miles. I just couldn’t believe how amazing that was (and probably tired everyone with my attempts to grapple with it)—that this whole world was elevated, that there was all this mysterious stuff beneath us, and that it had all been constructed, at who knows what cost. It’s hard to describe, but something about that removal from the pedestrian and predictable constraints of normal ground-based areas was very very intriguing, and ineffably tantalizing. I love cities for that reason, and this night, as we wandered around the levels and random nooks, fountains, benches and walkways, provided ample material for wonderment and joy. Oh, and it was AMAZING. At one point we were walking along, approaching this big crowd of people outside some restaurant. This car was parked in a little driveway sorta thing, and as we walked around it I saw the little “B” indicating that it was a Bentley…probably a two hundred thousand dollar car. Two spots down on the curb was a Ferrari, and behind that was a Porsche sport ute. We walked through the crowd, which consisted of very fine-looking folks and security people. The restaurant looked packed and very SCCHHWanky, and I marveled that we had just walked through the kind of high-brow uber-sophisticated life that you read about in magazines or see in movies. Later on we saw a tiny, wide, low Ferrari convertible glide past, circle around, and park outside a small Italian restaurant, yet another moment of the rich rich rich life happening before our eyes. I found that really cool, and I can’t quite explain why, but I loved it. It was basically an amazing time walking around, and it was almost hard because I couldn’t take it all in, and I couldn’t express or figure out why it was so titillating. But it was sweet.

At last we made it back to the hotel, and my knees were yelling pain profanities at me, so I was very glad to hit the room and get off my feet. Now I’ve finished this journal, Nate Dogg Cold Six Packs To Go is trying to sleep, and I’m jacked on Mountain Dew and Jelly Bellies and ready to watch some Strong Bad emails and Simpsons.
Woohoo!

We’re in Chicago!

*Desired Departure Time

9/22/06

Katie’s highlight was pretty much “hangin’ out with yinz guys and walking around,” which pretty much describes our day. Nate’s and Sarah’s was the walk along the lakefront in the morning, on the way to the zoo. It wasn’t a beach, it wasn’t a dock, it was just…a waterfront. A breakwater, sortof. With the big gray-blue lake on the right and the city stretching out and up to the right. Chicago has tons of apartment buildings, vs. Pittsburgh which has basically none, and that gives the downtown a different and interesting look. My highlight was knocking on the docent office door and having Grandma Kari open it! But a few minutes later I changed it to watching the gibbons swinging outside the small primates house, with long strong arms and legs, constant rolling falls and swings lacing them around the ropes and branches and cage bars. Man, it was mesmerizing (and really made me want to be a monkey). Finally, I figured that the Molé sandwich at Cosi’s for dinner was quite possibly my true highlight of the day. I just sat there in amazement trying to take in how good this food was inside my mouth. That place was way cool—very slick (“shwanky”), but not expensive, and very pleasant to be in. Egyptian rat slap while we waited for our food was sweet, too.

Sooo….what details should I fill in? I dunno. I got up at 8:33 after 3.5 snoozes, showered, and met up with the rest of the crew to hit the day. We hit Lincoln Park Zoo first, getting to walk around for awhile with Grandma and Aunt Princess, which was quite pleasantly unusual, thrown in the middle of our trip. We also walked through the conservatory, which was packed with interesting greenery (though not as cool or big as Phipps. Hah!). It was a long walk up to the LPZ area, so we were all down with idea of taking the El back to the hotel area (“The loop”). Riding the El is cool—the trains are pretty old and SO loud! You can hardly believe the roar and clatter as it crescendos in the subway tunnels. I always feel like I’m in Spiderman or something when we’re on them :-) Once back in our “home base” area we toodled around for a lunch place, and I steered us to this cool old semi-ratty Food Network-type place where we got delicious and HUGE Philly steak-type sandwiches. It was a great Chicagoey place, and was another high point of the day for me.

We decided to hit Chinatown for the second half of the day, Sarah and Katie eagerly anticipating it after the craziness of New York City’s Chinatown. It turned out to be pretty different—out from the main city, pretty open, and basically just like normal shops and services just smaller, closer together, and oriental. It was still fun, though, and I landed some sweet candy, almost bought a cool and different-looking button up shirt, and….got an avocado smoothie. Yes. Avocado, soy milk, ice, and something probably like cane syrup. I had no idea what to expect, dude, but I watched him make it, so I knew there was indeed avocado (frozen, I think) in it. It was light green, creamy and icy, and ended up tasting creamy and nutty like almonds. Every once an awhile my brain would connect that flavor with avocado, but in general it tasted like something totally different. It entertained me all the way back to downtown, and I’m very glad I got it. I’ll have to try making one at home :-)

At this point in the day we were all footsore and Nate wanted to go sit down somewhere. So we went to a big Border’s bookstore where we stayed for a couple hours while it got dark and rained out in the wide streets and concrete sidewalks. Chicago in my mind right now is basically big streets full of trigger-happy honkers who push red lights like nobody’s business, big cool-looking buildings towering over you, nice sidewalks (with the occasional potent whiff of the Chicago Sewer System), and a staggering plethora of shwanky places of business. Patrons of such businesses fill the sidewalks and drive fittingly swanky cars, and live in the unimaginably expensive (and sweet) apartments filling the city. There are just tons and tons of businesses, from little hole-in-the-wall places like our lunch spots to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and even swankier places with BMW 7-series coupes (yes, coupe!!) parked outside. It’s very cool, and I wish my knees and hips didn’t complain so much as I walked around. But whatever.

After party peanuts and candy corn (they taste like a Baby Ruth together!) in Border’s we finally got ourselves up and out and walking sorta toward an Irish pub, or anything that appeared warm and welcoming. Cosi’s (pronounced cozy’s) fit the bill, and we had an eminently enjoyable dinner there. After eating and sitting around lazily for a long time we walked down to the river and enjoyed a way cool nook with a Vietnam War memorial fountain—one of my favorite spots in Chi-town so far. Then to the hotel for some fierce rounds of Egyptian rat slap in Nate’s and my room, some sitting around vacant-eyed, and some talking about plans for tomorrow. Now Nate has hit the sack, I did the best 30 minutes of exercising I could in the hotel room without weights (and without killing my already pitiful leg joints), and now I’ve finished this journal (yay!) and I’m listening to Audio Adrenaline. Time to scrub off my poor teeth and hit the floor for some shut-eye.

This is a fun trip. Lots of walking, and it’s not like non-stop bowl you over incredible fun, but there are many moments of experiencing the “cityness” of this giant city, and that is a shy and magnificent concept that is very intriguing to explore and touch. I pray my legs hold out OK tomorrow, and that Katie’s sinuses clear up, and that it doesn’t rain, and that we are led to great things to do and see. Who would have thought 6 years ago that I’d be independent in downtown Chicago with the awesome Calano girls and some college guy?! [I didn’t know Nate 6 years ago] Crazy the things that happen in life :-)

9/23/06

I realized at one point tonight that we haven’t done anything this entire trip besides eating, sleeping and riding that costs money. That makes for a pretty sweet trip, in a different sort of way. One could look at us sitting in bookstores, walking around streets and wandering through little parks and say we’re having a pretty lame time, but it’s been extremely low-stress, and as I was walking back to the hotel this afternoon seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling the city around me I enjoyed the sense of this metropolis that has soaked into me over the past days. The ground shook and my ears cringed as a lumbering El train rolled through overhead, I twisted to make room for two passing guys wearing “De Paul” hoodies, another Baskin Robbins/Dunkin’ Doughnuts peered at me across the corner around a support pillar, and a dirty, wet, rusty brown and red alley swung by between buildings vaulting over my head as I walked down the sidewalk under the ancient rusting tracks of the brown line. Chicago surrounded me, and I felt like I was in a movie.

Tonight we went to Navy Pier—voted the best attraction in all of Chicago, glittering with amusement park rides, variegated restaurants, the crystal garden and shwanky events—and we spent all our time there sitting at the end of the pier taking pictures and looking at the city spread before us while the storm clouds rolled out to the east leaving broken white and glowing yellow behind the city as the sun, hidden for the day, made its way down to the earth. Suited shwankies, Hollistered preppies and camerad tourists walked down the length of the pier, the lights of the city sparkled and glinted more piercingly in the graying light, and the water kept its ceaseless lapping and rippling—a quivering mirror at the feet of the gathered stalks and blocks of buildings. The Chicago skyline is very majestic looking, and I keep thinking of a powerful person laying on the land, resting his elbows on the shore of the lake, reclining on the land but ready to jerk his head up and go into action. I delighted myself for a long time taking long exposure shots of the city as the sky settled into its pinkish glow and the water glimmered a rich blue. I haven’t yet thought out why taking pictures is so thrilling, but it made that time out in front of the city many times better for me, particularly because I got to use Nate’s pro camera and use up to 15-second exposures. It was a great time, and the pictures capture the lights and glows stunningly.

We did a lot more walking today, and my hips kept grinding away like they were bone on bone. Stupid legs. Nate’s feet were sore too. We headed south in the morning, down to Grant Park, the Buckingham Fountain, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography—something Nate was interested in seeing. The tops of the tall buildings faded into the high grey clouds and the wind blew, but it wasn’t chilling, and the grey wasn’t depressing. The museum didn’t open till noon so we killed 40 minutes around the Buckingham Fountain and a nearby rose garden. We took some quality pictures around there, and saw a flock of tourists on those freaky two-wheeled personal transport thingeys that came out a couple years ago. They looked…quite funny :-) The trees around the park had borne fruit, and a cherry battle ensued, lasting until the crosswalk that took us away from the vegetation. The tall buildings loomed far off to our right, and I especially enjoyed looking at the one under construction, with the crane perched atop it crossing the sky, the spikey unfinished floors at the top, and the taken-for-granted slickness of the finished lower portions.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was a nice place to be for awhile—inside, interesting, and intended for what we were doing in it. There were a couple interesting collections, and a couple that frustrated me with their utter normalcy, and over all it was a fine place, and I enjoyed getting to sit on the benches for awhile.

Coming out of the museum we headed for lunch, steered to “The Tamarind” by the girl at the museum. “The Tamarind” is “an eclectic Asian restaurant,” and it lived up to its name. And, it was swanky :-) The lunch specials were $9, which we considered a good deal compared to the $31 entrees. I got Vietnamese squid lemongrass, Katie got Japanese pancakes, Sarah got vegetable sushi (oh, the travesty!), and Nate got this awesome red curry shrimp with coconut sauce. From my first bite of tender field greens with perfect miso dressing I knew that this was a good place, and the rest of the meal proved to be delicious and of the highest quality. I really enjoyed everything, and by the end of what had appeared to be a boring plate of brown sauce, zucchini, tomatoes and unendingly chewable squid, I had grown quite attached to the perfect flavors and textures. You got your nine bucks worth, but I’m also quite happy at Mr. Johnny’s grill with a monstrous beef sandwich and a Mountain Dew. Mostly, I’m just quite happy :-)

We lounged at our window table for a long time waiting the rain out, which had finally descended in a Pittsburgh-like shower. It was a relaxing place to sit in, and I enjoyed the finery of it, knowing that everything was good quality, even down to the sleek faucets in the men’s room. When the rain let up we walked to what Google Earth listed as a giant music store where we could try out guitars and all kinds of cool stuff. It turned out to be a Barnes and Noble (had been for 2 years), so we split up—Nate heading back to the hotel for a nap, Sarah and Katie doing some shopping, and me free in Chicago with money, time, a map, and a desire to experience where I was. So…I read Calvin and Hobbes, bought some WHITE CHEDDAR Oke Doke (omg!), stopped at a Walgreens and got a Cherry-vanilla Dr.Pepper, and walked down, unwittingly, to the Sears Tower. It was sort of strange carrying this 99 cent bag of popcorn and bottle of pop with no bag or anything, not really sure where I was headed or what I wanted to do, but I rolled with it, and much enjoyed the views of the titanic Sears Tower as I approached it. It was great to sit on a bench by a fountain across from it, lay back, and just soak in its massiveness. Then I walked back to the hotel on a street that had an El line running above it, which I wrote about above. That walk was really sweet—one of the things that sticks in my head from the day.

After some down time at the hotel we headed out again, into the pelting rain, seeking Navy Pier and eventually dinner. The pier was sweet, though we did little of the normal activities there besides buying some candied almonds and a bracelet, and we ended up toughing it out dinnerless till we got back around the hotel area. Which, I realized, is pretty much the coolest place in downtown Chicago. Whereas the other posh hotels are bland highrise buildings amongst bland highrise buildings, The Ohio House sits across from a “Mega Donalds” (2-story McDonalds with a whole loungey thingey upstairs and gelatos and espresso drinks and cool crazy glass walls), several mid to upper range restaurants, and the sweet place where we ate dinner. It looked like just another restaurant from outside (reSHTaurant, as Sarah would say), but inside it was like a courtyard or something, with a second floor mezzanine and four or five food places. Man, it was like being outside, except you were inside! I really enjoyed dinner there, and I got another Italian beef sandwich (a Chicago standard), which was eminently enjoyable, if not as bursting-with-flavor as yesterday’s. I loved the feel ofthat place—around the crazy McDonalds and other lower buildings that gave you a sense of space, college students in and out, and that cool feeling of an interior made to be like outdoors.

That would have been a pretty nice way to cap off the day, but after Katie finished her fish sandwich we crossed over to the McD’s and lounged up there for several hours, eating ice-cream, sitting in deep comfort in deep comfortable chairs, and playing cards. It was the perfect place to be that night, and I just soaked in the pleasure of being there, in such a cool-looking building…that was a McDONALDS, for crying out loud, and was in CHICAGO! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Plus, I beat Katie in rat slap (after the epic game of “Up the creek down the creek”) by slapping a pair of jacks at the bitter end. Oh the glory!

So, I feel very blessed by God as I ruminate on the day’s experiences and let the writing settle them into my memory and percolate their pleasures deep down inside. I feel like I’ve gotten to see this city, which is an elusive thing, and the four of us have been able to abide together, enjoy our company, and chill.

Pleasant dreams! The city lives around me in the mysterious intrigue of night, and I lay on the floor happy, comfortable, fuzzily tired, and knowing there’s more to come tomorrow.

9/24/06

Sunday; last day in Chicago. I’m writing this journal on Tuesday because I didn’t/couldn’t take the time to write it Sunday or Monday nights. I don’t have time to write it now, but I am. It’s a good time to summarize the day and then step back and look at the trip and see what it was all about.

Sunday was a great day. As Nate said later, the trip seemed to build up and get better and better as it went on. The clouds finally broke, and though the temperature was a bit chilly, the blue skies were well worth it. I had my last apple juice-pop tart-Kashi bar breakfast and met up with everybody at 9:30. Millennium Park was the morning’s destination, having been highly and repeatedly recommended to us. I wasn’t expecting much—I mean, a pavilion, some shiny “bean” thing…big deal. But parks are nice to walk around in, you get a sweet view of the city from the lake shore, and we were carrying along a Frisbee :-) As it turns out, Millennium Park was one of the best parts of the whole weekend. We cut over east to the lake front and walked down the bike/walking trail there past a forest of boats and a jungle of highways till we reached the park. We walked through some closed garden thingeys and got to the pavilion, whereupon I proceeded to be in awe, and run out for a long pass. It was basically a huge grass field with a stage at one end and giant poles crisscrossing it like a sparse ceiling, from which speakers hung on cables. It was unexpectedly awesome—such a big expanse of verdant grass, with the majestic city behind it and these sweeping, soaring lines of grey pipe swooping high overhead, making you feel like you were inside, but not at all separated from the outside. We tossed around the disc for probably half an hour, and that whole time I just soaked in the amazingness of my surroundings. I didn’t want to leave, but it turns out there was more to come, with the much-touted “BEAN.”

The bean is pretty much that—a huge (~20 ft. long) jelly-bean-shaped shiny chrome blob set in the middle of a big patio area under the gaze of the city, with the gardens and landscape of Millennium Park in the foreground. In this world you never something that big and that perfectly shiny, so it immediately grabbed my attention as we walked towards it. We spent another 30 minutes or so basically walking around and under it, marveling, gaping at and laughing at the reflections we saw. On the concave exterior it’s like a real-life moving version of those “bubble” camera shots, with the city bulging and sweeping in a panorama wider than you could see with your eyes. Underneath the bean was a very very clever depression that led to a kaleidoscope of repeated reflections that left you squinting and trying to guess where you were in what you were seeing. We took a bunch of pictures leaning against it, looking at ourselves in it, and—in my case—jumping up against it. Probably you’ll just have to go there to understand how cool it was. Pretty much one of the most entrancing, delightful and wildly unusual things I’ve ever seen in my life.

The last things we saw at MP were these crazy video fountain things and some cool displays about cutting edge gardens around the world. I was surprised and very happy that people had come up with such truly stunning and magnificent things in this day and age—magnificent in their very design, not because of some gadget. Kind of seemed like a modern day pyramid or something—something grand and cool to look at, that sticks out in the world. I was happy for my species :-)

Around noon we had to head back to the hotel to check out. Another walk through the Chicago streets with my grinding leg joints and the typical chatter of comments on what was around us and various references to running jokes. It’s funny—looking back it feels like all our times walking around and touring stuff were comedy acts or something…most things we said ended up in a joke or a funny comment of some kind, especially on my part. In that respect it was a very unusual time, ‘cause usually I go about my days by myself or with family, where it’s more down to earth communication. I kinda wonder if I got really annoying like I was always fishing for laughs, always keeping a running commentary on the world as it passed before us. But I was aware of that danger as we went along, and tried not to blabber or joke around beyond what was natural to do and what seemed actually funny. Probably there was some of both, but hopefully I was enjoyable company, and I hope I wasn’t an annoyance to Sarah, Nate and Katie. I do know that there were a lot of funny jokes that came up, like Sarah shtrolling down the shtreet looking for a reshtaurant, and just in general being wrong in everything she said and did (versus me, of course), and me getting excited about cranes and second levels and Walgreens, and Katie struggling with her suitcases (ahh, Woody!), and Nate…just being Nate :-P I surprised myself with an ability to pick up a running joke on the fly and tie it into a string of conversation unexpectedly. I hope the other guys enjoyed those as much as I did. They laughed a lot, so I think there's a good chance. It's funny - we didn’t ever specifically talk about *spiritual stuff* like quiet times or something, but I don’t think we were shunning God from our conversation. I look back and see us pretty much reveling in the pure joy of God’s bounty and blessing and goodness in a really cool and extraordinary place. Like happy children running around the bins and shelves in God’s candy store (something everybody probably would have laughed at if I would have said it walking down the streets sometime). There is a depth and purity and peace of joy that we are able to experience as fellow Christians that I think blows away most of the happiness in a life without God, and that I’m very grateful for. This was a time of that, in a big ol’ heaping American-sized portion :-)

Back to the hotel. We checked out and left all our stuff except Nate’s work laptop in lobby by the front desk, which was in its own sweet little building outside the hotel. Then we set off again, free till six for our last explorations of Chi-town. I forget where exactly we were headed…I think roughly to the Sears Tower, but we were looking for a good lunch place, and ended up at Miller’s Pub and Restaurant, which furnished the third highlight of the day. For, you see, till now we hadn’t heard a single Chicago accent, and deep down that left a little empty hole in our city experience…a hole that was filled as soon as our waitress walked up and welcomed us. She was a good ol’ Chicago lady and she took good care of us, helping us out as we looked through the huge and appetizing menu (which ended up making things harder ‘cause there we just MORE things that sounded good that we wanted to get!), makin’ us some good salads, and workin’ things out with her boys in the kitchen :-) So we sat in our booth, ate big heaping portions of great American food, and watched Da Bearssss play on TV…a consummate Chicago experience. I even got Goose Island Honker’s Ale, a good local brew. That was a really nice time, and I’m so glad God led us to that restaurant. It was the perfect spot.

After lunch we spent some time in the blocks around the Sears Tower. Nate and I didn’t end up going up the tower, seeing as there was a 45-minute line and it cost $12, but I nevertheless got SEARS TOWER MINTS!!!! at the gift shop, and we had ample time to soak in its powerful immensity. Nate and I got some Starbucks which was delicious, Sarah and Katie took some phone calls, and I took hundreds of pictures with Nate’s camera. Heheh. He probably regretted it, but Nate Dawg Cold Six-Packs To Go asked me if I’d carry his camera for the day and I greedily assented. I could take pictures all day, especially with a pro-quality camera like Nate’s. Every angle looking down a street, every spot of glowing sunlight, every dizzying vista of towering buildings, every view and every angle had the potential to look awesome on screen. Having that camera was seriously one of the highlights of that day for me, since through it I got to vigorously experience and preserve the day and all the wondrous stuff around me. Nate’s gonna burn me a DVD of the pics, and I can’t wait to shuffle through them and find the outstanding ones, the ones that capture what we saw and how beautiful it was. Yay cameras!

That’s pretty much what we did for the afternoon – hung around the Sears tower and walked back to the hotel. The blue skies and sunshine uplifted the whole day, and I think all of us got on the outbound El feeling fully satisfied with our experience of the city. Nate agreed with me as we talked on the plane flight (in between throwing things at Sarah across the aisle): there was nothing we could think of that we wished we’d done, or that was left incomplete or missing. Another few days would have been fun, but not that much more so, and we were starting to get pretty tired (everybody but me). Even the El ride out to Midway and the time in the airport eating dinner were very pleasant (The El ride was actually stunning—we got to watch the sun set over the city, stretching before us in the glowing light like a scene from Star Wars). I remember sitting at the table eating Chinese and joking around, feeling a totally peaceful post-caffeine comfortable laid-backness, feeling Chicago around me and leaning back comfortably into the couch of the three personalities in front of me.

And that’s pretty much the trip there. We flew back, hefted our bags out to our cars in extended parking, and bid each other farewell under the night sky. I drove back home and pounded Switchfoot through the subwoofer, something I’d been looking forward to for the past 3 days. I left the window open all the way, abiding in the rush of cool air, not wanting to shut myself in to the car and end the trip. I didn’t feel sad as I shifted down the familiar streets, back in Pittsburgh again, I just sat back and let the subs pound the music into my body, basking in the fresh memories of a trip without blemish, thinking in the new mindset that now contained memories unlike any before. I think of this trip and I just think of me, Nate, Sarah and Katie lounging in the big comfy chairs up in the shwanky cool McDonald’s, looking out the glass walls at the streets and buildings and people, in the middle of the huge city as it lived on in the night, and we were part of that life.

It was a good trip :-) Unique in my experience. Old friends in a totally different setting. Mild and rich, like the latte I had this afternoon. Thank you God for such a kind kind blessing on your little children!

--Clear Ambassador