I woke up at 04:30 and felt that I needed to just get up. I was too anxious about all the unknowns in the day.
First was the shuttle from my motel to O’Hare Airport. Sure, they said it ran every half hour but their “just show up ten minutes ahead of the hour or half-hour” didn’t seem reassuring. So I took the 6am shuttle just to be sure. It left right at six, and dropped me off at the curb of Terminal 2. He gave me the number to call to catch the return shuttle, which I’ll need tomorrow.
Then “just go downstairs at the airport to catch the L.” Okay, I believe you, but what is catching the L really like? I assume I need some kind of ticket. Would it be crowded? Would I have to wait in line? I’d gotten some cash the night before just to be sure I’d be able to pay the fare.
There was rather a long walk between “just go downstairs” (three levels, by the way) and the entrance to the subway. There were fare machines, but for some reason they wouldn’t take my credit card. Glad I had the cash! Then the turnstiles: they had no slot for the tickets I’d just bought. There was one other passenger who was also struggling, but was using her phone instead of a paper ticket and got through. I finally saw two police officers leaning against a post chatting, so I asked how to use the ticket. They looked at me as though I were an imbecile. “Just use the yellow circle, like the lady did.” Okay, so apparently the paper tickets have an RFID chip and just proximity scan. Then the same woman was staring at the door of the Blue Line train when we got to the track, and there was still nobody else around. She asked if the train was headed downtown, oblivious to the fact that I had just failed to figure out how even to use the turnstile on my own. I told her that, yes, it appeared to me that it was a downtown train — the downtown train — but that she’d be a fool to trust me. We got on the train while she called a local friend and got confirmation that it would take her where she needed to go. She said she expected it to be more crowded, but after all it was only about 06:30 and probably most commuters don’t start from the airport.
The train filled to standing quickly as we headed toward central Chicago. I got to see a lot of the urban landscape from the elevated portions of the train. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to push my way to the door when we got to the Clark and Lake station, but I managed to exit the train and find my way up to the “surface.” Except ground level was in a concrete cavern formed by multi-story buildings and roofed over by elevated train tracks. Coming out of subway stations always disorients me though I’m used to generally having a good sense of direction. The phone was equally stymied, swinging the map in circles as it tried to get oriented.
Eventually, though, it pointed me toward Millennium Station and I began my walk through a crowded section of downtown Chicago. There was ever so much to see: people, architecture, heroic infrastructure, elevated trains, and an intense downtown energy.
I was passing a Holy Bagels shop, and realized that I was perilously low on caffeine and carbs. I also saw that I was likely to be at least an hour early for my South Shore Line train. So I pushed down my schedule anxiety and stopped for a bagel sandwich and a cappuccino. The barista took the time to paint a pretty little leaf on my foam, which made my morning better.
I left the bagel shop and proceeded to the corner where my phone assured me that Millennium Station stood. I expected a Union Station or Grand Central kind of building, but none was forthcoming. Eventually I noticed a kiosk-size structure with an unassuming fixed staircase leading into the earth. It said “Millennium Station” over the stairs, but I initially thought that it must just be a subway stop that was so named. Eventually, the cappuccino kicked in and I realized that Millennium Station was underground.
Down I went, and walked quite a long way underground following signs until I reached Track 13 from where my South Shore Line train was scheduled to depart. There was a train there, but all the doors were closed. It was still kind of early, but I was surprised. I went back into the heart of the station to use the bathroom and returned but nothing had changed. Then a conductor came walking along the track, and he said that the train I wanted was in front of the one we were standing next to. So I walked along the track until I came to where there was another train, not coupled to the first. While the first train had a reassuring “South Shore Line” branding, the second train had a “Metra” logo. I got on, still a bit uneasy whether I was in the right place. Another passenger reassured me that she had taken the train many times and I was on the right one.
The South Shore Line is a full-sized train, but it’s electric (employing an overhead trolley). It was roomy and comfortable and afforded great soft-underbelly views of urban Chicago and then the lake shore countryside. When I emailed the friend I was meeting in South Bend, he reminded me that South Bend is in the Eastern Daylight Time zone so my arrival time (noonish) only represented a two-hour ride.
I wasn’t sure where or how to find Jonathan when I arrived, but South Bend Airport is, uh, somewhat smaller than O’Hare and soon he was pulling up to the curb. We had lunch and toured the Indiana Dinosaur Museum (unexpected!). We chatted for a few hours. Jonathan is a university health care services researcher and a psychologist, and he’s always involved in one or more projects that I find fascinating.
While there were lots of interesting visuals, I find that with my phone missing its power button it’s almost impossible to quickly take photos while dragging my luggage and laptop bag and juggling a coffee and trying to follow an online map. But after Jonathan dropped me off at my motel, I did find this:
It was notable because the previous motel at which I stayed had had their pool paved over, and the one before that looked like this:
Perhaps the days of pools at lower-tier Midwestern motels are over. Not that it matters to me: I’m still on two weeks of abstinence from bicycles, pools, and sex following my surgical procedure. And none of the motels have offered bikes or sex as amenities either.
—2p