Quick Trip to Chicago

So we went to Chicago just for fun. Really. It’s a little funny, but even though Judy and I have traveled in a lot of places in Europe, our travels in the USA have been, with only few exceptions, made for business or professional reasons. This time we decided to just get up and go. It helped that we had a Delta Companion Ticket that cut the cost of transportation in half, of course. That certainly helped.

So we went off to Chicago September 26 and returned September 28, after only one full day there. But we had a lot of fun being tourists, and we didn’t come home exhausted from trying to do too much!

Here’s a summary. And the photos are below that.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017.

We drove off toward the airport even earlier than we had planned, and it’s a good thing we did. We had decided not to bother with remote parking, just to go for the daily parking rate in the deck. After all, we would be gone only two days, and the rate wouldn’t break the bank. Then we started driving through the deck looking for an empty spot. We drove and looked, then we drove and looked some more. Then we went up another level and drove some more. We finally found a spot at the end of the deck, just where that level headed off into the sunset, with a few spots pointed out into free space.

That meant we had farther to walk, of course, just to get inside and check our bags. We looked at that as simply a warm-up for running through the Atlanta terminal, and soldiered on. Checking in was quick and easy, and so was the rest of the travel day. We had reserved a car and driver ahead of time through asterRIDE, and we can’t say enough good things about that part of the trip, After all, this was our first time in Chicago on our own, we’re not as flexible or adventurous as we were in our twenties, and sometimes we just like to be pampered. Our hotel choice was made on the traditional real-estate guidelines (location, location, location) and our budget (price, price, price). We arrived at the Hampton Inn on Wacker Place to discover it was in the Art Deco home of the Chicago Motor Club. Check it out: neither the building not the lobby look like a Hampton Inn at all. The rooms are tiny, their furnishings typical, but the lobby is miles away from cookie-cutter-Hampton,

However, that’s enough about getting there.

Chicago Symphony at Home

One of the big items on our list of things to do in Chicago was to hear the Chicago Symphony. And hear it we did! The concert that evening started with Penderecki and moved on through the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto to finish the Schumann’s Symphony in C. Altogether a fun program. It was our first time to hear the Chicago Symphony live, our first time in the Concert Hall, and our first time to hear Anne-Sophie Mutter play. We might have to find a way to do that again! If for nothing else, just to see what color her strapless gown would be the next time. 🙂

What can I say? Music is altogether a different art form, and hearing an orchestra play in person does not in any way translate to an online experience, even when there’s a good recording. And even though I did take a photograph at the end of the program, I didn’t make a recording of any kind or quality. Let’s just say that after a full day of traveling, the concert was a wonderful way to end to the day. Revivifying, reviving, and renewing. We used the Uber app, got a ride back to the hotel, and crashed for the night.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

This was our “let’s play tourist day.” We started off signing up for a hop-on-hop-off ride around the city and really enjoyed the running commentary. To be honest, a good policy in most situations, we never did complete the full ride. We had too many places to really enjoy in one day, so some things just had to go.

We hopped off at only the fourth stop, Millennium Park (and the Palmer House Hilton, where we failed to secure a room). We were aiming for the Art Institute, but since we were too early to get in, we wandered around through the park and took in some of the art there. What fun we had! You need to see Crown Fountain in person to really enjoy it, of course, and there were certainly a few people standing around with us, waiting for the big event. I’m not going to say anything else. Just check the video—all the way to the end,

We took a quick look at the Pritzker Pavilion, mainly because we had spotted it the night before. I like a lot of Frank Gehry’s designs, and this one is no exception. Maybe some day we’ll go back and manage to make it to a show or concert there. It really looks like a fun place.

We stayed longer around “The Bean,” more properly known as Cloud Gate. In fact, if ever we acted like country-come-to-town tourists, it was while we were wandering around looking at Cloud Gate. Close to it. Away from it. Under it, Beside it. We covered all the prepositions but those requiring us to climb up to the top to be above it. We watched reflections of planes as they flew overhead. We saw people doing all sorts of things as they touched it. We marveled at the height of some of the handprints on the polished surface. I jumped and couldn’t come close! No photos here. You’ll just have to look at the pix below.

After a “parking interval” on the steps of the Art Institute, we made our entrance to the Museum. Just a note for BMA Members: North America Reciprocal is limited, and that limit doesn’t include AIC. All in all–that doesn’t matter when you consider visiting one of the great art collections in the world. We knew our physical limits, so we restricted the galleries and specific works we would visit. That was hard to do! How could we ignore Monet’s Haystacks? The Rouen Cathedral? Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon”!? To borrow a phrase from the current political jargon, we persisted. Did we see some world-wide masterpieces? Sure. Did we miss others?

Dear friends, we had only a few hours! The rest must wait until next time. This race through the museum reminded me of our visit to the Prado; the number of galleries and artworks exceeded our physical endurance. By a long shot! But this time, we could at least take a few photos without fear of reprisal. Including a time-out for lunch, we did manage to see some works we’d never seen in person before as well as visits to “a few old friends.”

Some of the highlights? Chagall, O’Keefe, Hopper, and a few more. Our final reunion was with Picasso’s “Old Guitarist.” I’m not sure I could ever go there without seeing that one. As I’ve said to Judy before, I’m quite sure Pablo painted all of those Blue Period canvasses just for me. This time I was so into Picasso that I forgot to take a photo of any of the Kandinsky canvasses across the room. But they completely captivated me. As did the Fauvist paintings. And some cubist works. And …

When we left the left the Art Institute, we hopped back on the bus and rode through Grant Park and the “Museum Campus.” If we saw nothing else in the next half-hour, we saw enough to know we needed another trip to Chicago. After our senses were sated, we hopped back on the bus, rode through Grant Park, seeing a lot of the lake and breezing past the Field Museum, Adler planetarium, and Soldiers’ Field, and more landmarks, only to disembark and walk to our next adventure: a mid-afternoon river and lake cruise featuring architectural highlights of Chicago.

So we took off for a river/lake cruise on Chicago’s First Lady, and a delightful time it was indeed. I love locks and always have to take photos of them in operation. I had no idea there would be a lock here, but it’s how the flow of potentially polluted water from the river is held back from the lake. I had no idea about all of that, so I was fascinated. I watched the forward gate open when we were in the lock itself, so there a video below the photos that shows the water from the lake, about three feet higher than the water in the river, flowing into the lock.

All in all the ride was a great way to put our feet up and just look around at the skyline, both from a distance as well as up close. The juxtaposition of older skyscrapers with new ones makes it that much more interesting.

After the ride was over, we were pretty much done in, so the only thing left to do was crash in our room for a while, then enjoy a great dinner at Morton’s. The next morning was just for travel, so we came home to plan our next jaunt.

Photos