Chicago was always a place that intrigued me, but I never seemed to get around to visiting, probably because it wasn’t on a coast, and wasn’t really near anything else (both of which are also probably reasons why it’s such a great place). Finally, in the summer of 2001, Aimee and I caught a game at Comiskey Park and visited Piero, who was busy climbing the ranks of the improv world. We had a great time wandering around the city, and vowed to return soon. We did, the next summer, for a Cubs game and some quality time with Paul, who showed us around his neighborhoods and hangout, and took us to Retro on Roscoe. We had lunch one day at The Twisted Lizard (thanks for digging that one out, Paul) in Highland Park, as seen above.
A fondness for Chicago and the appeal of a flat, fast, course and open registration led me to sign up for the 2004 Chicago Marathon, which I ran that October and enjoyed immensely. We had a few days on either side of the race to wander the city, though it was a little hampered by both pre-race nerves and post-race hobbled-ness. The last time I visited Chicago was the strangest visit of all – Aimee I and were driving from Seattle to Rochester with the Golf that had been shipped from Anchorage down to Seattle, only a few days before the beginning of the school year for both of us. Aimee found out in mid-trip that she had to be back in Rochester at school, and we got as far as Kansas City together, where I dropped her off at the airport. I headed on by myself to St Louis (for some Ted Drewe’s, of course) and onward to Chicago. Since our 2004 visit, I had accumulated a long list of bars and clubs that supposedly had old-style photobooths so I could add them to the website, and halfway to Chicago, I decided I’d see how many of them I could visit while I was there. By the end of a long night, I had hit 17 booths, and found three more in the morning before hitting the road again. I don’t know if the summer of 2005 will go down as some sort of second golden age of photochemical photobooths – after they had become hip again, but before digital booths had invaded with their cheaper, easier to maintain innards – but I do know that many of the photobooths I visited that night have since disappeared.
Chicago is one of those cities I think Aimee and I could imagine ourselves living in; then again, I’m not really sure what that means, because I’m pretty sure we never imagined ourselves living in L.A., and here we are, having a great time. Anyway, we like Chicago, and I’m sure we’ll be back soon.
