I talked about Chicago earlier in my travels, and it wasn’t my favourite city. Now, I have to admit, it still doesn’t top Boston or New York or Philly or even DC, but I can tell you that the rather negative light I painted it in had at least a little to do with the weather and the company (or lack thereof). Returning to the city with my GT travel buddies was a whole new experience.
Chicago hadn’t changed, but the experience was very different this time – in one day, I danced in the fountain’s spray, ate a far more sensible amount of pizza (well, okay, a little more than was entirely sensible) and watched Scottish Dave play on stage at Buddy Guy’s Legends – single handedly dwarfing my San Francisco storytelling contest story, no that I minded. I swam in Lake Michigan, and I walked the pier. I saw Nighthawks and American Gothic in the Art Institute. It was unreal.
After Chicago, I had a little more time getting used to the water and getting over some of my anxieties regarding its many attempts to kill me, as I shared a two person kayak on an estuary off of Lake Erie for an afternoon, before more relaxing by the campfire.
By now, the idea that we’d have to part ways soon was beginning to set in for all of us, and campfires and mealtimes were becoming a little more of a sombre affair.