WEEKENDING CHICAGO

In your mid to late 20’s attending weddings becomes second nature. It seems that every couple of months, a friend from college, grad school, medical school, work, etc. gets married. And all of these weddings (assuming they’re in different locations) provide wonderful excuses to travel and experience new parts of the country. Just in the last couple of years, I’ve attended weddings in Columbus, Cleveland, and Portsmouth in Ohio, Lancaster in Pennsylvania, San Diego, and Hermosillo, Mexico. But this story is about a weekend trip to Chicago. As always, you can view the photographic narrative accompanying this story below. What is a photographic narrative?

With a wedding motivating this weekend trip, having somehow never been to Chicago I requested to have the Friday leading into the weekend off to allow for a little more leeway with travel, and to ultimately give us a little more time to explore the city. And when that Friday came, we boarded a plane in Phoenix and took to the skies toward Chicago. After about four hours, our wheels touched down on the tarmac, we deboarded the plane, and got in a taxi to the heart of the city. Our hotel sat at the confluence of two rivers, which converged and headed east toward Lake Michigan. We could see this confluence from our hotel window, which provided an amazing view down the river to the south. Having traveled against time to get here, by the time we checked in it was late in the evening, so after a short welcome dinner, we turned in.

Waking up on Saturday morning, we immediately headed out on foot to explore as much as we could before the wedding later that day. This day was really just about immersing ourselves in the city to get a feel for its character. We strolled down the famous Riverwalk with buildings towering overhead in all directions, and eventually veered south down State Street. Up to this point, we’d passed probably 5 Dunkin Donuts. And now, my will to resist any form of donut vanished, so we made a quick stop for some sugary carbohydrates. With a donut down the hatch and coffee in hand we strolled past the iconic Chicago Theater, its red sign glowing above our heads. From here, we made our way to Millennium Park, the home of Cloud Gate (The Bean). For some reason I’d expected this mirrored sculpture to be a bit bigger, but it was impressive nonetheless. We weaved in and out of the conglomerates of people all vying for a perfectly framed selfie, stood under it for a bit, and then continued through the park. We passes a public group workout under the metal arcs at the back of the Pritzker Pavilion, and then passed the stage of the pavilion –with folded and bent metal face instantly recognizable as a Frank Gehry design– before continuing north out of the park toward Navy Pier. We walked the entirety of the pier, taking in the sights of all types of boats floating on still waters dwarfed by skyscrapers in the background. And then, we headed back to the west. It was approaching the early afternoon, signaling lunchtime, when we fortuitously came across Portillos. No touristy trip to Chicago would be complete without one of their famous hotdogs (or two in my case), so we stopped for a quick bite to eat. With our stomachs full, we made our way back to our hotel to get ready for the wedding. 

After a beautiful wedding and reception the night before, we woke up early on Sunday morning to restart our exploration. First on the agenda was a stop for breakfast at Eleven City Diner. The food and ambience were amazing (I’m a sucker for a good diner vibe, even if modernized), and the restaurant’s more southern position put us in a good spot to walk to the Field Museum. Even before we entered, I was impressed with the building’s façade and grounds. They provided a true sense of grandeur before going inside to explore priceless artifacts from all periods of human and natural history. We spent several hours wandering up and down the halls of the museum as any museum-goer would. And as always seems to happen when observing any bit of history, I left slightly overwhelmed in deep contemplation of a broader perspective of our species’ place in the world and beyond. 

We’d originally planned to visit the Shedd Aquarium next, but there was some construction going on, and they had a sort of timed entry reservation system in place that soured our desire for more spontaneous exploration. So, we instead walked north along a long stretch of shoreline, taking our time in the perfect weather, watching clusters of anchored boats bob up and down a few hundred yards off shore. We turned inland after some time to walk past Buckingham Fountain, which was the most grandiose fountain I’d ever seen. From here we made our way to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was along this walk to the art museum, again looking up at the architecturally interesting buildings that towered overhead, that I remember my thoughts drifting into contemplation of what it would be like to live in such a city. Chicago isn’t just a collection of randomly placed buildings, but rather, a place of business, culture, and enrichment planned around human living and work. Walking up and down the blocks, you could feel a part of something larger –some small unit of energy in a grander system. Of course, all this comes with the typical inconveniences of city living: having to make reservations to do anything, paying a lot of money for a small place of living, constant noise, difficulty finding solitude, no close access to any truly natural outdoor environments… I guess that’s a lot of inconvenience. But if you could somehow adapt to those things, or if those things weren’t important to you, you could live a truly interesting life here. 

As we approached the Art Institute my mind came back to reality, and we walked up the front stairs to go inside. We started our journey in the basement photography section. I was hoping to find some awe-inspiring, contemplation-inducing, or at least visually interesting images. However, what I found were some self portraits of a man dressed in a gray onesie posing in various awkward positions. We left the photography section quickly in search of something more subjectively interesting, and weren’t disappointed by the rest of the museum. As we strode through the exhibits, organized by time period, we saw works by Monet and Picasso, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Seurat, paintings by my favorite landscape artist Bierstadt, and my favorite painting of all time: Nighthawks. It was truly incredible. And with our feet aching after what felt like miles of walking through the museum, we sat down in an outside garden to rest a bit. But literally as we sat down, a security guard yelled, “Hey the gardens are closing!”. So, we stood back up, walked out of the museum, and continued on to Michigan Avenue for dinner. After walking by a few very enticing restaurants, we eventually settled on Acanto, where we enjoyed some squid ink pasta and wine. Then, we headed back to the hotel and slept the night away before an early morning flight ushered us back home to Arizona.