I don’t go on long vacations often. My husband and I go yearly to Starved Rock State Park for Christmas, sometimes a couple days for a writing retreat, a couple days for a conference (which I count as vacations because I go somewhere). Long vacations don’t happen much.
Once, however, my husband and I journeyed to Chicago. We traveled by Amtrak to Chicago over a Thanksgiving break and spent a few days there. We stayed at the Allerton, a nice old Chicago hotel, roamed around the Mile, ate in the Walnut Room at what used to be Marshall Fields (this is a Chicago joke; nobody calls it Macy’s). Visited Water Tower Place, walked along the river walk, and had Thanksgiving dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking Navy Pier. We went to a Broadway show (in Chicago; it happens), visited the Museum of Science and Industry, and stopped by a BIG Apple Store. It was Chicago for tourists.
The Chicago I explored in the mid-Eighties didn’t exist by then. I once dated someone from Chicago, and we spent weekends with two weekend bus passes and $30 in pocket change. We would wander around the city, eat ethnic restaurant food, and explore, largely on foot. The places we went were long since closed, or I would have taken Richard to Meyer’s Deli for the wondrous European candies or that Persian restaurant nearby. But my Chicago trip was superlative for the Christmas atmosphere and the sights.
Words Like Me 