Chicago, Day 1

Our first day in Chicago began with a trip to Union Station to try and disentangle the mess that was our reservation. After the first re-route, Amtrak lifted the segment limitation on our pass, making it possible for an apparently unlimited number of reservations to be associated with it. In the extensive re-booking that followed our second re-route and subsequent emergency airlift, we had reservations lingering from both, and the routing that remained would have required us to be in at least two places at once, if not three. We walked up to the ticket counter in Chicago, and the agent we spoke to visibly cringed.

After the cringing, he was the most helpful Amtrak employee we had yet encountered. He cleaned up our booking entry, got us back on track, and managed to get us aboard the Lakeshore Limited on 1 July. This was still a day behind schedule, sticking us in Chicago for an extra day and causing us to miss Canada Day in Niagara Falls, but it was certainly better than I'd gotten on the phone. I'd also already made plans for transportation to Toronto based on leaving on that train, so all we needed to take care of was a last-minute hotel in Chicago. A quick click on Hotwire (and the judicious coincidence of my paycheck being deposited a few days early) and we were on our way.

After doing pretty well at our game of ticket poker, we headed out in search of Chicago pizza. A friend on Facebook recommended Aurelio's, and his recommendation was excellent. It turns out that there is an Aurelio's just around the corner from Union Station. (Of course, we didn't figure that out when we left Union Station. Of course not! We thought about going back to our hotel to leave our bags, then decided better of it once we were downtown. We mailed back our first pack of memorabilia at the post office, THEN looked up Aurelio's, and had to backtrack.) They had a $10 pizza-and-pasta lunch buffet, and after weeks of PB&J sandwiches we were eager for as much pizza as we could stuff ourselves with. The pizza didn't look all that great, considering its location under a heat lamp, but looks can be deceiving. One bite confirmed that this was indeed excellent pizza. (For the curious, it was the Chicago-style thin crust, not deep dish- which, I expect, cannot be held under a heat lamp for long.) I pass on the recommendation to any heading to Chicago, with the caveat that locals might know better than I. Thanks, Dana, for the tip!

We then set out trying to follow an itinerary from WikiTravel, but it turned out that the author's travel plans didn't exactly coincide with mine. We set out to see Chicago's Michigan Avenue, also known as the Magnificent Mile. Once we got there, however, we found out that the Mile is magnificently expensive- it's Chicago's primary commercial strip, populated by high-end department stores and boutiques. We did dig the Old Water Tower and nearby pumping station and firehouse, the first two of which survived the Great Chicago Fire, but the remaining occupants of the Magnificent Mile did not appear so magnificent to us. Therefore, we went elsewhere.

A quick walk east (and an astounding realization, on my part, that the water was now to the east, rather than its proper location in the west) took us to Lake Michigan, which we then proceeded to swim in. The cool water was refreshing in the muggy heat of the day, and it was fresh water despite its extension beyond the horizon. (Salt water always bugs me a bit, leaving a crusty impression on my skin after I'm done swimming.) We spent a bit of time splashing about and comparing notes on the local wildlife, which was out displaying an impressive array of colored plumage.

After our swim, Dani was feeling in need of a respite from the continuous city-walking that we'd been engaging in. We wandered back to Michigan Avenue and caught a bus headed for Union Station. We also were under the impression that we had to leave the city quite early in order to make it to our suburban (and inexpensive) hotel for the evening, so we got on a blue line train heading for Forest Park, connecting to one of the CTA's rare #17 buses. After the end of that ride, we had a mile-and-a-half walk to our hotel. Neither one of us were happy about it, but Hotwire hides the actual name and address of a hotel from you until you pay for and book your stay. (In return for accepting this limitation, you get insanely cheap rates. In most cases, we stayed for 50% or less of the room's posted rate. In this case, it was cheaper than hostel beds for the two of us.) We walked, weary, packs on, across suburban wasteland, pausing only for water and a bit of grocery shopping at a Super Target. We finally reached the Hillside Extended StayAmerica, checked in and tried to spend the evening relaxing.

Of course, fate would not allow us such a luxury. The air conditioning in our room didn't work. A quick call to the front desk informed me that, no, a maintenance person was not available on site, and that the desk clerk's promises to "call right back" were empty. We didn't receive a call for the duration of our stay. Plan B- a cool shower and opening every window in the place- worked passably well. I also then logged on to the Internet to discover that Pace, Chicago's suburban bus agency, is not on Google Transit- and that a quick perusal of their schedules would have brought us directly in front of our hotel, with buses running half-hourly up until midnight! At least we discovered this before the mile-and-a-half walk back to the #17 bus. With that, we ended our first day in Chicago.