We trained, trammed, subwayed, ferried, taxied and walked our way across Spain, Italy and France during the past few months. We got to Chicago and immediately began to think of how to use a rent car to get around–then we thought of it, Chicago has very good public transportation, so we took the rent car back to the airport and took the train from the airport to our hotel. ( We did use the car to go to worship first.) Once at the hotel, we took the CTA (subway train) to downtown, made the transfer to another, got out and walked up to the Magnificent Mile area and had a delightful afternoon/early evening. Trees and flowers are abundant in Chicago and the streets were busy with lots of tourists out and about. We went into Bloomingdales and got no farther. We realized we had not been in a US store for quite some time and Bloomies is quite nice. Since Kathy loves coffee, we scoped out all the alternatives.

We headed over to my favorite chop house in Chicago, one I have eaten in several times–Harry Careys. Harry was the iconic sports announcer for the Chicago Cubs and popularized the 7th inning song, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Amongst all that sports paraphernalia, Harry’s serves really good steaks in an Italian subway station atmosphere–white tile and dark wood. Kathy and I had a great time. We love walking in a city atmosphere and we figured if we could maneuver around Europe without a car, we could certainly do so in Chicago. WEG

You know you are in the US Midwest when you see churches like this popping up.