Archive for the 'Illinois' category

Leaving Chicago

September 6, 1997 7:52 pm

Saturday the 6th Sept. Pm.

Ahhh, this is better. A much more pleasant train awaited us, and we were soon installed into the top deck of the double decker coaches. The pleasant guard cheered everyone up with his witty announcements, and generally slow, but very pleasant way of speaking. “Now y’all should listen to this safety bit now, ‘case we get a crisis wiv da choo-choo!”

We’re currently clattering our way through flat fields of corn… just passing a train with 130 wagons full of the stuff. Not much to look at, but for some reason… I don’t care! The landscape is already starting to look very mid-westerly. The sort of place you’d imagine an alien abduction film being set! It’s nice not to be rushing around for a change. We have now finalised the rest of our itinerary, and looking forward to picking up the hire car tomorrow. The time is now 6:30, we have a video, “George of the Jungle”, to follow in an hour, and dinner for 8:45. I think I’m finally beginning to recover from Greylock!

Chicago - City of Reflections

7:50 pm

Morning came, and brought with it a change of time; back one hour to Central Time. The rising sun illuminated some nasty factories, and huge farms. But miles passed, and we were soon backing into Chicago’s 30th St Station.

WOW! What a city! It felt like what I imagine Miami to be like. The sun was blazing in a crystal clear blue sky, and we exited the ornate station plaza and almost immediately found ourselves at the foot of the Sears tower, the country’s tallest building. After watching an excellent video presentation, we boarded the express elevator, and went up 110 floors in 1 min 20s, just a little slower than the World Trade Centre. Again, the view was more stunning than I’d imagined. Chicago is HEYUUUGE! Bordering lake Michigan, the climate seemed perfect on that day. After spending the regulatory time in awe, we proceeded to the waterfront, by way of a tram station, where I accidentally left my old-school hip-hop tape with da funky blackman der, and confused the hell out of a server in McD’s, (even though I tried to keep the sentence down to monosyllables). After taking an excellent waterfront tour, we headed toward the aquarium/oceanarium, with a very impressive collection of things that glowed, flashed, metamorphosed, and changed colour. Or was that just the after-effect of too much Dyphedryl the night before? Then came the dolphin show, with four performing dolphins who were very well trained. We made a mad dash back to the station, via a crew filming Michael Jordan, and caught the train.