A naval base and the Windy City

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August 16, 2007

Kristen and I are traveling to Chicago, IL, with my parents to attend the graduation ceremony of my brother, Jamie. He has joined the Navy to become a Master of Arms and is ending his recruit training at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, where our hotel is. Unable to see him until after the graduation, we decide to spend the afternoon driving around the area, through a relatively bleak North Chicago. Industry seems to have long abandoned the area. We drive into Wisconsin before turning back, stopping at Illinois Beach State Park to put our feet in Lake Michigan.

August 17, 2007

The next morning is the graduation ceremony, and after a thorough security check we are able to see some of the base, the architecture of which is utilitarian and devoid of any and all decoration. We also see Jamie for the first time in months. Photos are forbidden anywhere except for during the graduation performance. For the time thereafter Jamie is able to leave the base, only to be back before curfew each day. We again drive north into the town of Waukegan, which appears more affluent, and walk around Beach Park where concrete and stone breakers stretch out into the Great Lake. We walk their lengths, admiring the ships and scenery and watching the sun’s light dance upon the water.

August 18, 2007

The following day we hop on a train to downtown Chicago and about an hour later arrive at the Chicago OTC train station. I have been to New York City countless times and have come to know the city fairly well, and Chicago being the closest comparable city in the country, in my opinion, makes me very curious as to the differences I will see. The first of these differences is experienced at the train station when I go searching for a map at the bookstore. As I pay the cashier, who has thick glasses and a curious bowl-cut, he cautions us that some inconsiderate city-dweller has broken a bottle on the nearby bridge and that we should watch our step should we venture that way. I have serious doubts that anyone at Grand Central Terminal would even notice broken glass, let alone feel the need to warn people of it. Indeed, garbage is easier to notice in Chicago, as the cleanliness of the surrounding streets is of a quality I could not have expected. The smell, too, is more pleasant than Manhattan, or at least less offensive. However, unlike “the city that never sleeps,” Chicago seems to keep Midwestern hours, as on that Sunday not even a McDonald’s or Starbucks is seen open on each street we walk. Like all cities, though, Chicago has its share of pushy vendors. A man with a shoe-shine kit engages Jamie in a conversation near the train station, asking him multiple questions about the Navy. All the while I am trying to get my brother’s attention to tell him to ignore the guy and keep walking. Instead he gets talked into a shoe shine. Clearly Navy graduates, dressed in their conspicuous white uniforms and unschooled in Chicago culture, are ready targets for vendors trying to take advantage of them.

The architecture around the city-center holds amazing examples of both early skyscrapers and beautiful post-modern towers of glass and steel. We stop at a restaurant near an El Train for some deep-dish pizza and then walk to Millennium Park, filled with fun sculptures and twisting walkways; to the beautiful Chicago harbor; and then to the Navy Pier, which I have read is a tourist trap yet nevertheless seems appropriate for my brother to visit. Of course, it has nothing to do with the Navy, and is home to generally crappy souvenirs. Luckily, however, our visit coincides with the Chicago Air and Water Show, and so planes zoom and spin above us, dipping down towards the water or zigzagging across each other.

If it were just Kristen and I, our destinations would be quite different, in search of local experiences and drifting around the city until our legs burn. Unfortunately my father’s constitution is not so willing and we take a cab back to the station. However, upon discovering another hour before the next train departure, we convince him to visit the nearby Sears Tower, once the tallest building in the world currently the tallest in the U.S., in the meantime.

August 19, 2007

The next day we return to the city and take a shuttle to Chicago’s Museum Campus, exploring the Shedd Aquarium, which was until recently the largest indoor aquarium in the world. It houses some impressive marine life collections and is equipped with large windows that look out to Lake Michigan. It is a rainy day, but the view from the Campus, which juts out from the city, still offers a spectacular view of Chicago and its harbor, even with the overcast fog that shrouds the building tops.

August 20, 2007

The following day Jamie can only leave the base for a few hours in the late afternoon. The forecast promises more rain and so my parents decide to stay near the hotel and further explore the area by rental car. Kristen and I take the train back into the city and hail an uncomfortable cab ride back the Museum Campus, a fire and brimstone sermon oozing from the vehicles speakers. We arrive at the Field Museum of Natural History just as it opens, and I am eager to begin browsing their vast collection of fossilized bones and anthropological artifacts. The museum houses various historical and curious treasures, including Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus yet found; the infamous Lions of Tsavo, which killed dozens of rail workers in Africa in 1898, now stuffed and harmless; and many Native American and Egyptian artifacts, mummies among them.

Kristen and I next make our way to the Adler Planetarium, the final museum on the campus. It was the first planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere (1930) and is the oldest in existence today. This alone is enough to get me to want to step inside. I have always loved astronomy, and adding that it came recommended by a friend we look forward to seeing the exhibits. Unfortunately, much of it seems geared toward children using low-tech interactive displays, and other than this there are a few space exploration artifacts. The planetarium’s express mission is to inspire young people, especially women and minorities, to pursue careers in science. This is certainly a noble effort, though for someone like me - an adult who has had college-level astronomy instruction - there was little to hold my interest.

We then jump onto a shuttle and hop off at Grant Park as the rain begins to trickle down. We check out the Buckingham Fountain (which I recognize from the opening credits of “Married with Children”), and then watch children splash in the Crown Fountain, a rectangular video sculpture that stands like a megalith and spits water out at pedestrians, changing digital faces as it does. We again wander the downtown area, known as the Loop, before returning to North Chicago to visit my brother on the base and say goodbye.

That night we eat with my parents at Red Lobster, a decision that I regret for days. I awake before sunrise with food poisoning, sweating and nauseas, and spend the next twenty-four hours trying to keep liquids inside my body that want to escape from every orifice. I am admittedly a nervous flyer, but as I finish filling the barf bag on the plane to the point of leakage I cannot care less if the plane falls from the sky - at least my suffering will end. It is a terrible ending to an otherwise fun trip.

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Comments

[Nate]

I'd forgotten how sick you were when you got back from that trip. Sounds fun otherwise.