Reflecting on Chicago

Well, on our way out of the parking lot on our bikes and ready to start our day cruising the city, we get stopped by the parking attendant and she says we need to leave if we are not shopping at Best Buy :-( Drats. So we go back to the Vanderstink and quick throw the bikes into the back and ready to go find a better parking place. After trolling around Chicago for a 45 minutes to and hour looking for overnight parking, we found Millennium Parking Garage near Lake Michigan and all the public parks of Chicago. Score. $26.00 for 24 hours. Not bad for a well-lit and semi-safe location to spend the night. At this point it was about 1:00pm so we pulled our bikes out and set out towards the Lake Mich. There we found a great bike path that trailed north to the beaches along the lake. The north beaches were clean and the water looked great (compared to the Jersey Shore). The magnificent towers in the background cast chilled shadows over parts of the beaches. Because of this, the mid-Monday afternoon beach-dwellers had to readjust their towels to be in the summertime warmth of the sun again.

We wandered north on the bike path and ended up finding a path that led us into the city along the river/canal. We rode that to the end and then hauled our bikes up stairs to the city’s streets. Since we didn’t want to back -track, we aimed our trek back towards the lake this time via city streets. It was dangerous, but fun :) When we arrived at the bike path back near the lake, we continued and rode about 2.5-3 miles north of the big towers where we got these awe-inspiring shots of the cityscape from a northern perspective.

Our stomachs started rumbling and we decided to hit up Pizzeria UNO for some Chicago styled ZZah. As we were seated, our waitress warns us, “You know it takes 45 minutes to make one of our pizzas right?” “That’s fine,” we replied and enjoyed the outside seating on the warm and sunny late afternoon. These dang pigeotto’s kept flying near our table and bothering us and the folks around us. On top of that, we were burdened with the presence of a hobo, who carried a sign reading quote, “FOOD IS DA SHIT” and muttered obscenities to female passers-by. Regardless, the pizza was irresistible, so good in fact that we felt it necessary to save our last slice for a late night snack.

After filling up on the crunchy thick-crusted deep-dish spinach and mushroom pizza and some local brew, we decided to walk it off on the Magnificent Mile - aka Michigan Ave. On this mile, you will find your standard set of luxury shops, including but not limited to: Louise Vuitton, Apple, Rolex, Tiffany’s, Victoria’s Secret and even a Garmin store. Not exactly our cup of tea, but still enjoyable. It was about 5:30pm at this point and we decided to hop on the bikes and ride south on the lakeside bike path. As complex as the road system in the city was, it was relatively easy to navigate, especially since around 5:30 pm it seemed like the people of Chicago deserted the roads.

We continued to trek through to the south side of the park where a museum (I think), a planetarium, and a “famous” fountain were showcased. Pictures of the city skyline were taken from the planetarium pier at sunset. I, Melissa, (Yes, I just picked up writing at this point) decided to make a Zen pose in the spirit of the moment and was corrected on my posture by the neighboring Asians. But let me explain this “spirit of the moment” – it looked like something out of a magazine. The sky was streaked by a gradient of yellow, orange, pink, purple, and then blue. Stars poked holes in the sky at random points as the black towers sprinkled with their window lights cut into the clouds.

As it was getting darker and we came out of our sunset trance, we decided to head back to the parking garage by going through the center of the park. To our surprise, we encountered an extravagant water fountain. This thing had lights, music, and animal statues. Yes, this was no joke. In fact, people gathered around this watering hole to watch it spurt huge amounts of water into the air twice a night. We witnessed this phenomena ourselves (and recorded it because it was so friggin’ magical).

Continuing on, we found several interactive art sculptures that according to our newfound friend, (who we will talk about in the next paragraphs) are said to have “taken the art from the eye and put it into the cerebral”. He “was an artist”. These sculptures included an alien-spaceship-looking, life-size, and chromed-out “Bean”. This is what it was called. (Makes sense). The next piece included two, 40-foot towers featuring pixelated, close-up images of random faces. Water poured from the top on all four sides and fell into a shallow, black pool of water that was only about 1 or 2 inches deep. People could walk in between the towers, which gave the illusion that they were walking on water. We rode our bikes through it. In fact, our figure-eights were apparently so beautiful that it inspired a local artist to photograph our movements. One of his “best shots” was of me (Meliss) silhouetted in front of the (at the time) digital lime-green tower. Of course, we had to talk to this guy.

He was an artist that kept reminding us of how lucky we were for being young and entering into the workforce after the older generations have been jaded by its defeating financial crisis. He then continued to tell us a little history of Chicago and how our home city of Philly is very similar in terms of brotherly love.

All in all, Chicago felt like the future. Never before have I seen a city so clearly and harmoniously juxtaposed with the greenery of nature. Even more so, it was remarkably clean. The public had consistent access to recreational and tourist-like amenities.

Oh and we are in Minnesota right now looking at the Mississippi River. See yah in Rochester.