Hi All,

I love vacation. We just got back from Chicago. My wife had seminars all week which left me free to explore the city. Readers of my earlier blog know I avoid stressful, near-death experiences. Which is why we eschewed driving down on the John Nolan Express-deathway and took the train.

This is why I like the train: 1) I don’t have to drive. 2) Someone else is driving and dealing with the rush hour idiots. 3) We arrived in Chicago just three hours after leaving Portage. And that included three stops. A conductor told me they averaged better than 80 miles per hour. 4) You’re on a train and not a plane which means travelers don’t have to deal with power hungry, inferiority-ridden TSAs who will tear apart your luggage if you don’t answer their inane questions to their liking. 5) You can carry your own cocktails onto the train. I hardly had enough time to shake up two margaritas before they announced we were in Chicago.

It had been a long time since I’d walked the streets of the Windy City. I think the last time for me was on a second grade field trip with Miss Putnam’s class. We road the yellow school bus and watched in horror while the class buffoon, Jeffrey Dunham, devoured two boxes of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. He washed those Zonkers down with a quart (before we had liters) of Mr. Pibb and promptly puked all over the bus aisle just as we arrived at our destination.

There’s nothing worse than being trapped in the back half of an aging, school bus by a puddle – make that a lake – of Screaming Yellow Zonker puke. It didn’t take long for the sympathy pukers to join in and then it was every kid for themselves. If it wasn’t for a quick-thinking bus driver and an emergency rear exit, we all could have died that day.

This is what I learned from my trip to the city. It’s cold. I mean, bone-chilling cold. I wanted to experience the Chicago skyline from the lakefront. Lakeshore Park borders Lake Michigan where the really cold weather comes from. It cuts through your fat and settles into your bones. My ears turned blue that first day and almost fell off. One of the nice Michigan Avenue boutiques had Chicago Bear stocking caps for sale: $25. I decided I’d rather live without ears than be caught in the dreaded Chicago black and orange.

I revisited the Field Museum and was surprised to learn that the 2006 movie, A Night in the Museum, starring Ben Stiller was actually filmed in the Chicago Field Museum.

I paid extra and took in the ancient Aztec exhibit. Remember the Indiana Jones movie where the drug-crazed Aztecs tried to remove Indy’s still beating heart as some form of sacrifice to the Gods? Well, apparently that part was true. Some of the folks visiting the Aztec exhibit found that part of history terrifying. But the real horror didn’t occur until after we left the safe confines of the Aztecs.

Waiting for us in the general public section of the museum were 3,000 junior high students visiting the museum on a field trip. It didn’t take me more than 10 minutes to realize that junior high students represent the missing link between humanity and the animal kingdom.

My adventure continued. Next stop, Shedd Aquarium. I’ve been to a lot of aquariums over the years. They’re all pretty much the same. Smell the same too. Like poop. There was a furor in the front lobby. The junior high kids had descended upon the aquarium like 17-year locusts. Time to leave.

I took refuge in a city trolley and learned a lot of really neat things. Like the “Gotham City” scenes in the Batman movies were actually the south part of Chicago’s State Street. That Chicagoans didn’t think Al Capone was such a bad guy because he didn’t intentionally kill innocent civilians like the present day gangs.

On that note, the tour operator informed us that over the weekend, Chicago had regained the title “America’s murder capital” and that history sometimes neglected to teach us that Abraham Lincoln infected Mary Todd with syphilis and had to marry her. Don’t believe me? Look it up.

I like a good pushing and shoving, but nothing prepared me for the sidewalks on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile on a Saturday before the holidays. You know Obama is going to be in town doing some weekend shopping when every street corner is flanked with big, beefy security forces. And finally, I learned that it’s worth the wait in sub-arctic weather for a table to open up at the Chicago-style deep dish pizza mecca, Gino’s East.

I learned to locate a liquor store in a hurry when two tap beers nicked me $15 and I also found out that panhandlers don’t like a dose of their own medicine when one enterprising young chap got a chance to talk to my hand after chasing me down the street with his change bucket.

Cabbies are rude, the general public nasty and the wind always cold. Would I return? Can’t wait.

Until next time, I’ll remain Red Beans and Ricely yours.

Jeff