Chicago - Pics & Wheels

Chicago was our start point driving the old Route 66. We flew from Perth to Chicago via Sydney and Los Angeles. Luckily there were some interesting books in LAX that we had time to look through as we had quite a long delay.

Once we got going, we had a smooth flight with nice views over Los Angeles National Forest and Mt San Antonio, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon in the distance.

Our first destination in Chicago was Willis Tower. We caught a lift to level 103 and had some amazing views from the Skydeck.

We were very happy to see in real life the famous overhead trains, the Wrigley building, the Trump Tower, Chicago Tribune Tower with its pieces from various buildings and sites around the world as well as all the expensive shops along the Magnificent Mile. It was Pride Month in US, so many buildings were flying the pride flag. It was also graduation time in Chicago so we saw lots of temporary stands selling toys in graduation hats, flowers, lollies etc. Some in rainbow colours as well since it was Pride month.

Giordano’s is a famous chain of pizza restaurants serving deep dish pizzas – basically pizza is baked in a cake pan and looks like… a quiche!

Millennium Park is a oasis of green surrounded by high rises. There was a gospel music festival on so the park was pretty busy. It also meant that we got searched for weapons before entering the park.

The famous Cloudgate (aka The Bean) sculpture offered distorted views of the passer-bys as well as the surrounding buildings.

Chicago dogs are not as lucky as the Australian ones. The parks are tiny and so called “dog runs” are less than 5 m long.

Lake Michigan looks and feels like a sea as there’s waves when it’s windy and you can’t see the other side. People were sunbathing, playing beach volleyball – enjoying a nice summer day. Lifeguards looked quite relaxed and worked in different kind of pairs than the ones in WA – one was up in the tower looking towards the lake and fully clothed, while the second one was in a rowing boat on the water, with their back towards the water and looking at the one that was up on the stand.

There were lots of people on bikes, scooters or walking, the unfailing madman harassing some walker.

In 1900 the flow of Chicago River was reversed and instead of draining the city sewage into Michigan Lake, the drinking water source for same city, it started flowing backwards, towards Mississippi River. This is the lock from Cicago River to Lake Michigan.

Route 66 runs from Chicago to Los Angeles and we drove it westbound. We had a quick photo at the start of the road (luckily we went on a Sunday, we probably couldn’t have done it if it was a weekday).

We went to Lou Mitchell’s for breakfast – one of the many diners we were to find along the way. This one is quite famous and is also celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The food was very nice – huge portions though, same as everywhere else in US. We had some of their famous doughnut pops (or holes) and got offered free faith books when we left.

We found a very different Starbucks store on the Magnificent Mile – on four storeys, serving not only single origin coffees but quite nice teas as well as oleato – olive oil coffee! We didn’t try it but it looked… different.

We did a Chicago gangster bus tour to see places and hear interesting stories about righteous and bigot criminals and officials alike. Chicago was after all Al Capone’s stomping ground, but he shared it with many other gangsters of Italian, Irish or Russian descent.