Chicago

Before moving on to Idaho, I forgot to mention a brief stopover we made between our time in Minnesota and Indiana. When we were setting up the trip, we found that we could save a considerable amount on our airline tickets by driving from St. Paul to Scottsburg. After thinking about it, we figured that we could take advantage of this to stop at a midway point and see some friends of ours in Chicago.

I visited Chicago a few times when I was living in Switzerland. My brother had moved there for work and my travels back and forth allowed me to book layovers in the Windy City. I wouldn’t say I knew it well, but I did get a general familiarization with the area in the late 1980s. Now, traveling there over thirty years later, I was curious to see what was recognizable to me.

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Our friends live in Evanston, a suburb on the north side of the city, located on the shores of Lake Michigan. They leave near Northwestern University, a beautiful campus surrounded by massive and beautiful historic homes. Being from the northwestern part of the US, I remember being puzzled by a university (with a terrible football team) of the name being located in the eastern half of the continent. But as you might guess, at its founding in the mid-19^th century, the area was considered the northwestern part of the country (it was also the Northwest Territory up to 1803). Probably too much trouble to rebrand now to Northcentral U.

Having done the drive from St. Paul to Scottsburg in a single day last year, the drive to Chicago seemed relatively easy in comparison. Never having lived in the US as a family, we’re not as accustomed to long drives as Americans generally are. But we are accustomed to long-haul flights so I guess it is comparable (except there are no toilets, no one serves you food and you don't have to sit by someone you don't know).

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After settling in, we proceeded to catch up with each other’s lives. We knew them in Burundi roughly ten years ago and have been in touch off and on since. Interestingly, Priya knew Courtney many years prior when they both worked in Washington DC. It was only a coincidence that they would reconnect in Bujumbura. The coincidence goes even further in that my oldest niece would marry one of her close childhood friends who had moved to Idaho to play football (and their fathers are still close friends today). Crazy.

Looking back. Easier than busting out the slide projector.

We pulled out photos showing our children, now as tall as their mothers, running around as toddlers in Bujumbura. It was certainly a different chapter in our lives, more so for them given that they have been settled in the US for some time now. So interesting to see them in such a different context.

In the evening, we headed to the lake. It’s so massive that it feels like a freshwater sea stretching to the horizon. We had pizza on the beach and the kids played in the chilly water. As the sun set, we loaded up and headed back to their house. As we drove through the streets of Evanston, I was trying to picture myself (or ourselves) living in suburban America. To be honest, it’s hard to imagine. It’s not that we couldn’t make it happen. We could. It just seems so vastly different. Not better or worse. Just different.

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The next day, we had breakfast and headed south towards downtown Chicago. Given that we had the whole day to get to Scottsburg, I decided to drive through the middle of the city, find a place to park and explore a bit. I opted on a road that would morph into Lakeshore Drive which provides a rather stunning entrance into the city center. We passed Oak Street Beach, crossed the Chicago River and exited at Millennium Park. We found 3-hour parking for the price of what would have been a cheap hotel room back in the day.

The area was rail yards and parking lots when I was there last so it was happenstance that my more or less random exit from the highway took us there. I hardly recognized anything. Turns out that the park is one of the top ten tourist destinations in the US. It was midweek and certainly crowded so I’m not entirely surprised.

The park is full of fountains, sculptures, play areas, food stands, etc. We came upon a massive bandshell called Jay Pritzker Pavilion and an orchestra was rehearsing. Having just waded through the chaos of crowds and so forth, it was an oasis - stunningly pleasing to the senses. We eventually had to extract ourselves from the venue to continue our visit, but I could have remained there the rest of the afternoon.

Eventually we made it to the lake shore where we followed a pedestrian path past the Chicago Yacht Club. Made me think back to the time that I joined my brother's sailing team on a night race across the lake to St. Joseph, Michigan. If I remember correctly, they had the second fastest boat in its category in Chicago at the time (but not the second fastest on the night). I was basically useless, serving more or less as ballast since I don’t know anything about sailing. But it was a memorable experience.

Buildings appear smaller than they are...

After reaching the Yacht Club, we bought some ice cream, took some selfies with the gorgeous skyline backdrop, and headed back toward the car. We stopped briefly on the way for a Chicago-style hot dog (had to) and that was pretty much it. On to Indiana.