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.
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