Easter afternoon in Chicago

The clock struck noon. Could I make the 12:20 train from Bartlett station?

I did make the train, and I did spend a the weekend's only sunny hours downtown. For the picture story (400 KB total), click below.

First of all, understand that the train is a screaming bargain: The 40 miles from Bartlett station to Chicago, round-trip, is $5--in fact you can ride it all weekend on one ticket. You can also ride to any other suburbs, even into Wisconsin, on the same ticket, all weekend. Parking is $1 at Bartlett, and of course you have no need to pay the $12-20 parking in Chicago. Wow.

Much of the suburban land west of Chicago is low, flat, and riddled with canals and shallow ponds. Parts of the area were eerily similar to the Netherlands.

The first good sighting of the city from the train--or from any vantage--is amazing. I have always believed Chicago to have one of the world's great skylines, both because the downtown's layout has a single focus (unlike New York), and because the city's downtown architecture is odd and beautiful and unapologetically massive, somehow without being macho or stupid. (An example or two below.) The best skyling photos are from the Lake, of course, but Easter was too cold to swim.
 

So you come in through Union Station. This is a waiting room.
 

I assume that, after a recent movie, I don't need to introduce this photo.
 

Chicago's architecture is a joy. Building shapes and materials have real personality and often reflect what goes on inside.

This is a detail from the Carbide and Carbon Building. The color black still looks odd to me--in Florida you never but never see black buildings, clothes, cars, or anything else man-made--but on this building front the black is oddly satisfying and attractive. Of course, the attractiveness is intended partly to distract you from the fact this company's black coal products were in fact nasty. But part of a great city's attraction is the hope that money and taste can make everything, even coal products, clean again. I have to grant that this buidling front is an excellent effort.
 

I will let this modern piece speak for itself.
 

The Ferris wheel at Navy Pier. Remember that Chicago is the birthplace of the Ferris wheel, the first being built for the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
 

A fire boat at Navy Pier. The Chicago River gives the best access to many downtown Chicago buildings, and of course of course it's logical that the easiest way to get water into a pump is to float the pumps on the water. They take fire seriously in Chicago: they once had a Really Big Fire that you may have heard about.
 

Yes, Chicago has a beach. This is just north and west of Navy pier, and yes those dots on the sand are die-hards trying to make some vitamin D, subcutaneously. Seems hopeless to me but hey, go for it--great cities are all about Trying Everything.
 

Final note: one thing I'd seen in previous visits to Chicago was people talking to no one in particular, presumably not quite in their right minds. On this trip I again saw people talking to no one around them, but now they have a cell phone in their hand. Whether this demonstrates improved mental health is problematic.