In Chicago

Dear Lucy,

I arrived in Chicago at about 3pm on Thursday and had about a 3 hour wait for my next train. So, I put my gear in a storage locker and headed out into the Big City to take a walk.

The Sears Tower is just a block away but it looked to me like most any other building so I didn't give it a second glance.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day so I just headed toward the park at Lake Superior to see the lake that my Dad had spoken so much about. He grew up in Duluth Minnesota and after high school worked on an iron-ore ship that plied the waters of Lake Superior.

He never said much about his experiences on the ship except that he worked in the kitchen and one day the cook told him to throw some left-over pancake batter over the side of the ship. Dad was young and didn't know that wind direction was a huge factor in what side of the ship to jettison pancake batter from.

He had a 50/50 chance of being right. But he wasn't. And so the story goes that some of the deck hands spent a bit of time cleaning pancake batter off the side of the ship and he learned to test wind direction.

So I gave Lake Superior a cheery wave, sat on the board-walk for awhile watching the various dingys, yachts, speed boats and tourist contraptions sail around the lake.

On my way back to the train station I ran across a vegetarian restaurant and had the best vegie meal in a long time.

For those of you who aren't vegetarians you may find this unappealing, but I had a great bowl of thick savory lentil soup, a Greek spinach and feta pie (with the crispy philo dough) and a glass of freshly made fruit/vegetable drink.

What a treat.

I had worn my jeans that day thinking it might be cold by a lake and so wore socks and my Vans skull shoes. You all know those shoes. But I guess my feet aren't used to wearing socks these days and were getting sore so I removed the socks and hung them from my back pocket like a tail.

No one bothered me. Can't imagine why. I mean, they were clean socks...

--Kathy