Saturday, May 3, 2008

We’re about to ask the hotel concierge how to find a few sites from my list, when we overhear him telling some senior citizens about a boat tour of the skyscrapers lining the Chicago River. Chicago was the birthplace of the modern skyscraper, back when that word meant a building of ten stories. We’ll soon hear this point of Chicago pride repeated several times by our river guide: “We did it first”…“We did it here first”… “The technology was available, but we were the first to use it.”

We’ve chosen the worst day to sit outside on the open deck of a tour boat for an hour and a half.

We’ve chosen the worst day to sit outside on the open deck of a tour boat for an hour and a half. A freezing wind worthy of an Alaskan winter prevails, until soon my body aches with cold. Stephanie tells me she had a relative who used to say, “There’s no such thing as inclement weather, only inadequate clothing.” And I’m wearing it. Each time the wind penetrates the light spring fleece and windbreaker I brought for my idea of a chilly spring day, I mouth the word “F- - -” to Steph. By the end of the tour, even our guide, a Chicagoan, is shivering visibly, and her voice is shaking.

The Etch A Sketch skyline that draws us into a watery canyon of modernity is much more enchanting than I expected

The Etch A Sketch skyline that draws us into a watery canyon of modernity is much more enchanting than I expected — like one of those past-meets-future cities you might see in a sci-fi movie set against a utopian backdrop. Our guide tells us enough information about each building for us to earn advanced placement credit for architectural degrees. I won’t bother you with the extra-credit details, but here are a few highlights:

- If you count the two antennae on top, the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) is still the tallest building in the world.
- The people who developed Chicago in the nineteenth century, back when the waterfront was just mud, had the foresight to require that no tall buildings ever sit right at the lake’s edge where they’d ruin the view.
- If we were to continue down the South Fork, we could take our boat all the way down to the Mississippi River and on to the Gulf of Mexico.
- The architectural styles of Chicago’s high-rises include art deco, modern, post-modern, and contextual (as in: Chicago has an industrial past, so howzabout a building of industrial-looking brick and steel?).
- The art deco, and therefore very symmetrical, old post office was built with a hole in the middle for vehicle traffic to pass through on its way to cross a nearby bridge.

I feel soothed by the reflective curve of towering green glass that bows toward us from 333 Wacker Drive.

As we pass under several of the river’s many bridges, I feel connected to the city as if by the webbed cross-strings of a cat’s cradle. I feel soothed by the reflective curve of towering green glass that bows toward us from 333 Wacker Drive. I feel drawn to the charismatic personality of the Tribune Tower, with its moody, intricate, Gothic elements.

I feel drawn to the charismatic personality of the Tribune Tower, with its moody, intricate, Gothic elements.

When we leave behind the frigid river for the misty shore, I walk to the Tribune Tower to take photos, while Steph walks to Portillo’s Hot Dogs to wait for me indoors, out of the increasing drizzle. The tower’s arches with their graceful carvings of flora and fauna are not disappointing up close. The peacock and other birds carved over the doorway are true works of art.

The peacock and other birds carved over the doorway are true works of art.

Yet I’m most enthralled by the odds and ends of mainly shapeless stones plucked from architectural and natural wonders around the world, which are embedded in the walls of the building. Among them are stones from Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, the Parthenon, the White House, Alaska’s Mount McKinley (a.k.a. Denali), and Antarctica. I touch those I can reach, as if the feeling of rough cool stone might impart a permanent memory to my fingertips.

I’m stunned by the delicate perfection of a white bas relief of a Chinese man in ancestral garb carved from the stone of an ancient temple in Honan.

As I make my slow way along the stone-pimpled walls, I’m stunned by the unexpected delicacy of a white bas relief carving of a Chinese man in ancestral garb plucked from an ancient temple in Honan. But the rock that moves me most is an ordinary-looking, chipped, white square that’s both smooth and rough to the touch: a piece of the Alamo. The story of the Alamo has always made me uncomfortable: yes, the defenders of the Alamo were courageous and their fate pitiable; and yes, Mexico got a crappy deal when Texas played finders-keepers with their northern lands. I suppose it’s corny to touch a rock and feel this stirring of ambivalent emotions about an event that happened more than 1000 miles away and 170 years ago. But I can’t be alone in this sort of reaction, or why did Colonel McCormick, former Tribune publisher, ask reporters to bring back these bits of rock from around the world?

The rock that moves me most is an ordinary-looking chipped white square that’s both smooth and rough to the touch: a piece of the Alamo.

After spending half an hour caressing the Tribune building like some perverted architect with a stone fetish, I had to run, actually run, to catch up with Steph at Portillo’s. We picked Portillo’s because it’s a good spot to enjoy a proper Chicago dog loaded with everything: relish, mustard, onion, tomato, peppers, and pickles. I skipped the tomato. Tomato on a hot dog? Please, enough is enough.

Portillos is a good spot to enjoy a proper Chicago dog loaded with everything: relish, mustard, onion, tomatoes, peppers, and pickles. I skipped the tomato.

Despite lingering hypothermia from the boat ride and the Tribune Tower touch-a-thon, I’m craving a chocolate milkshake, so I order one. It’s one of the three best I’ve ever had. (The other two were at the Arctic Roadrunner in Anchorage, Alaska and the All For The Better ice cream shop in Englewood, Colorado.) Now I’m shivering sort of violently, even though we’re still sitting inside this oversized indoor hot dog stand. In a city famous for its many magnificent buildings, I can’t seem to find a way out of the cold.

“-est”… That’s how I’d describe Alaska. It’s the United States’ furthest northwest state, with the Aleutian Islands reaching further west than Hawaii. It has North America’s highest mountain – Mount McKinley - the largest national park, the largest national forest, the globe’s third longest river system, and the world’s largest sub-polar ice field. The state is larger than most nations: divided in half, each half would still make the largest state in the Union. Lake Hood, four miles outside Anchorage, is the largest float-plane base in the world. Alaska boasts the northernmost railroad, in Fairbanks, the continent’s northernmost town, Barrow, and the southernmost tidewater glacier, Le Conte. It’s the lightest, darkest and perhaps boldest, harshest, prettiest place on the planet.

I heard the groans and felt the snap of calving glaciers.

My first trip to Alaska revealed characteristics of the Divine I’d never before imagined. Laden with supplies, I hiked across spongy tundra trying to imagine empty-handed Alaska Natives dwelling for more than 3,000 years in what appeared to be useless, barren land. I witnessed a bold land of non-stop daylight, heliotrope flowers, soaring eagles, black bears, blond grizzlies, moose, foxes, Dall sheep, caribou, snow hare, jumping salmon, humpback whales, puffins, and more. I heard the groans and felt the snap of calving glaciers. I watched forty-foot tides sweep over the deadly mud flats surrounding Cook Inlet and viewed lingering evidence of the 1964 earthquake - the most powerful quake in North American history.

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“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn…” Jack Kerouac.

We grab a cab to take us to the oldest continuously operating jazz club in Chicago, an old speakeasy called the Green Mill. (photo by Tom Gill)

My girlfriend Stephanie and I came to Chicago because we plan to drive Route 66, and it would seem wrong to hit that storied road without slipping into Chicago’s notorious past. That means jazz. If you’re going to jazz it up right, late night’s the ticket. It’s almost 10:00 when we grab a cab to take us to the oldest continuously operating jazz club in Chicago, an old speakeasy called the Green Mill.

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Tags: by Cara Lopez Lee
Posted in Getting Kicked by Route 66, Girls Trek Too, Monthly Trek, Night Tripping, Spirit of Adventure, U.S. Travel | No Comments »