My 50th birthday was Monday and I spent it and the handful of days immediately adjacent to it doing something I'd always meant to do but somehow never 'got around to' before:  I visited Chicago with no business agenda whatsoever-- just to experience the city!  Maybe it was reading Geno Petro's blog and being amused by his writings and the parallel lives we seem to have led on different sides of the country.  Maybe it was the thought of seeing Michigan Avenue without a -7 chill factor.  Mostly it was just that my SF Giants played the Cubs on THE Monday and I had never been to Wrigley Field before.  No matter-- you really shouldn't need to have any special reason to visit Chicago with no agenda.  Chicago could be my kind of town.

Like many businesspeople, I have "seen" Chicago many times before.  I'd land at O'Hare or Midway and "see" the cab ride to a downtown hotel.  I'd "see" the boardroom or ballroom where my business was being conducted and I'd see the $6.00 cup of coffee on the hotel coffee shop menu while I wrestled with my conscience over the $24 egg plate.  Often I'd even "see" the shops along the brief walk between hotel door and restaurant door-- always someplace nearby the work hotel because, after all, cold is cold and food is food but sometimes you just have to breath fresh air (even if it's inhaled with a throat-freezing 'chill factor'). 

My bride and I arrived on Friday and promptly found a pie and a couple of cold Goose Islands (hey, those snacks on the plane just will NOT cut it as a meal).  We took in the downtown walk, the Mag Mile, Millenium Park (where we immediately recognized "The Bean" as a work by Anish Kapoor-- an artist that buys way too many polishing pads from our son, a sales representative for a 3M distributor-- "we sell tapes and glues, Dad... lot's of tapes and glues." Note:  Kapoor's latest work, C-Curve, sits in the Louvre where my bride saw it recently while visiting our daughter, the graduate school gypsy.  The Chicago piece is actually titled "Cloud Gate" by the artist but no one in Chicago called it that except us).  We trolled toward Navy Pier and I, under duress, acceded to a ride on the Ferris Wheel-- now there's a money machine-- $12 a couple and a 7-minute rotation to 'see the view' from a slightly higher angle than the ground.  The wheel never stops-- people just keep handing their $12 over all day and all night and walking away shaking their heads....  Why didn't I think of that!

We did the Chicago Architectural Foundation's river tour-- clearly the single best attraction not known as Wrigley Field in the entire city.  Do yourselves a favor and see the city's buildings from this vantage.  Our docent from the Foundation was spectacular-- sadly, the little child monsters (the ones with the inattentive Mommies and Daddies) running up and down the decks screaming were somewhat less so.  Still, I have a new appreciation for architects and tall buildings.  We made it a point to ride the trains to points outside the Loop and downtown areas just to see what was there.  I now can say I've paddled a boat on the duck pond at Lincoln Park, seen the hippo and the merkeets at the zoo, ate sushi prepared by a college-aged white kid with dreads, and rode the 22 Clark after drinking beer at Murphy's Bleachers outside a Cubbies-Astros game.  Life is quick-- take pictures to help remember things.

I'm an avowed 'foodie' and in search of great food we found a terrific little French restaurant near Lincoln Square off the Brown line with a nice (and fair!) wine list, a knowledgeable wait staff (thank you, Marnie), a great back patio, and terrific food.  If you go, look for Bistro Campagne and sit outside!  Friends also took us to Greektown where we dined on things I cannot pronounce, cannot spell, and likely cannot recreate in my own kitchen anytime in this or any other life.  OPA! 

Monday was Giants versus Cubbies.  Every picture tells a story.  Me?  I got to see Wrigley for the first time and that made the entire trip have meaning.  My bride?  Well, suffice to say the Giants gave away a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the 8th and pulled a no show at the plate in the 9th and once again snatched punishing defeat from the hands of certain sweet victory.  My bride asked why I was smiling instead of frowning and I had to tell her the truth:  nobody can frown when you think about the Cubbies.  Even if the Giants were destined to lose, I saw the National League's version of Mecca and paid homage.  How can that be a bad thing?

I did miss not seeing Geno but then Chicago isn't really going away anytime soon, right?  There will be a next time... for Geno and for my Giants.

Chris Hendricks