Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Big City, Big Lake (Chicago Part II)


The night in Chicago had worn on a little bit longer, into the early morning really. That’s why I thought I could push it on to the next post. We eventually made our way back to Jeff’s place and hung out in the hot tubs while looking out the window on this beautiful sight.


Jeff entertained us with stories of his shenanigans as the night wore on until we found ourselves needing to get home at around 2:00 in the morning. Eric, Tweedy, and I thought that we would just go back on the train, but Matt started freaking out and saying we could not ride the blue line at that time of night and eventually ended up just getting us a Lyft home. Remember, it was the blue line that we were told would be a bad train to ride late at night, this detail will feed into the story later on. So we got home and crashed hard once again.

The next morning, we had planned to meet up with Megan once again since the other guys hadn’t really had a chance to get to meet her. Not to mention she said she would love to go on a walk with us along the coast of Lake Michigan and Eric and Tweedy were looking to start their list of great lakes that they had swam in. This time we took the train into town by ourselves and managed to find our way to her place with a little help from the all-knowing Google. We spent some time chatting until we came to something like a swimming bay that was blocked over entirely with cement. Apparently even the beaches in cities are made of cement. Anyway, Eric and Tweedy both got their dips in the lake. I had left my swim trunks behind and something told me that skinny dipping in the middle of the city would be something of a no-no.


After our little walk with Megan we went back to Millennium Park to check out The Bean on a sunny day. The day before had been cloudy and Jeff told us that it would be wrong to get a picture of a cloudy Chicago reflected in The Bean. The day before was a whole lot less crowded. That Saturday afternoon the pavement around it was crowded with people, including two separate wedding parties. Apparently everyone gets married in Chicago on Saturday, at least that was what Megan had told us. We also had first hand evidence. We had seen four different wedding parties that very day. Yeah… I’m going to believe her. And Jeff was right about The Bean too.




Oh, in case you are wondering, that sculpture is not technically named “The Bean,” but that is the only name the locals know it by, and if you are having trouble finding it just tap one of the people who looks like a city person (see the description in the last post) and ask them which way to go to find The Bean. People in Chicago are super helpful and nice despite what their expressions while walking the streets might suggest. In fact we had to incite the assistance of three local girls in order to locate the entrance to the blue line again so that we could get back to Matt’s for some authentic Chicago style pizza that Matt’s parents were kind enough to provide for us. (The only food we had purchased in Chicago had been some McDonald’s because our budget does not in any way allow for eating out. Honestly the McDonald’s was even a little pricey for our price range.)

Yes, we were back on the blue line, heading back into town. With how well we managed to navigate the train system on the way in I was sure we would be fine just remembering to get off at the last stop, but then we found ourselves just sitting in the train at one stop for about five minutes straight before the conductor came on the intercom. She told us that everyone was to get off the train due to “police activity.” I know, government is always so good at specifics. We had no idea what to do, all we were told was that we had to get off the train and that there would be no refunds given. We’re a group of guys that like to hike so we decided we just continue to walk along the route of the rails and just watch for the trains starting back up again and then get back on once we saw that happen. As we were deciding this we caught some chatter around us that seemed to clear up “police activity.” The word circulating was that someone had been shot. All of this happening on the blue line that Matt had said we should not ride the night before-- I guess the locals do know what they are talking about. No one seemed all that phased by the idea of someone being shot at one of the stops (aside from being irritated that they had to get off the train because of it), but then again gang violence has been at an all-time high in Chicago. Since no one else seemed to pay it any mind we decided that walking would still be a perfectly fine plan of action. (We learned later on that if we had just remained at the entrance to the train stop a bus would have shown up to pick us up, but the conductors and workers on the train didn't seem incredibly inclined to let the passengers know about these buses.)

As we walked along the houses began to have a larger percentage of boarded up windows. We walked past a guy with a shopping cart full of old, rusted, long pieces of rebar. Things were starting to gain that vibe—you know, that one you get as a person born from privilege walking into a legitimate ghetto. Not too long after that we came upon a group of young black guys lingering on the sidewalk with a few cars parked right in front of them, and we even saw single cars driving by one by one, stopping for a second before driving on. I’ve seen the show The Wire, (Warning! The clip I have hyperlinked has explicit language and violence) so I had a good idea as to what was going down. Tweedy thought that they were standing there to mug people. Eric thought that it was just a gang of dudes that would leave us alone if we just kept walking on through. Whatever the case we had a decision to make: continue on our original path or find a longer way around.

We debated for a while as to what we should do and then eventually just ended up walking on through the conglomeration of young men. Upon first stepping up to them a guy in a somewhat nice white jacket approached us and started asking if we wanted to purchase any “chemicals” at least that is what I deduced because he was using some of the same slang that I had heard Jeff using while conducting his “business.” Eric told him we were just trying to get home and he turned around and told the other guys to just leave us alone and let us keep walking home. They paid heed, though the much younger boys around yelled taunts that made me think they thought we were cops. The “muscle” guys half unzipped their big coats while one guy went and stood by a wheel of one of the parked cars. If you have seen The Wire you know what all of that was about.

The good part is we were left alone and continued walking until a couple blocks later we got a call from Matt telling us that as soon as his Mom heard the area we were walking through she got in the car and now they were on their way to come pick us up. We got back to the house and stuffed our face with some delicious Chicago style pizza.

Next day we got in the cars and set the GPS for Des Moines, Iowa. We would have set it for a national forest in Iowa, but there aren’t any of those there. Anyway, Iowa is for another day. Chicago and Illinois was now officially checked off the list.

For video remember to check out Eric’s and Tweedy’s Youtube channels.

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