Early last summer, with our summer vacation plans settled, I turned my mind to where we might go during the winter holidays. Though I wanted to finally have our southern Africa jaunt, which had been canceled multiple times due to COVID and our curtailment from Guinea, it still did not seem the time. International airfares remained quite high and C’s school district had decided on only a week and a half winter holiday break. Given my tendency to flee cold weather if I can, I wanted very much to find a warm, or at least warmer, place to spend the holidays. I looked at international destinations closer to home, like the Caribbean, but those airfares also seemed ridiculously (at least to me) costly. So, it seemed a domestic trip would be the way to go. Yet, I did not want just any old vacation…

In the summer of 1984, my mother, my two sisters, my aunt, and my cousin set out on a cross-country train journey to California. My aunt, L, worked for Amtrak in Pittsburgh and could purchase discounted tickets. My mother drove with my sisters and I to Pittsburgh to meet L and my 12-year old cousin Dan. I was eleven; my sisters 9 and 7. We boarded the train in Pittsburgh and traveled to California via Chicago over the next two days. We then visited L’s daughter and some major sights in the area before flying home. I had fond memories of this trip, my first great adventure. 

I was hooked on this idea, but there were a few more details to work out. First, I looked into Amtrak prices and discovered that while C is under the age of 13 her ticket would be 50% the cost of mine. This then seemed the ideal time to go; she would also be the same age I was when I made that train trip with my mom. I researched starting our trip from Washington, DC, but I did not relish the idea of an additional 20 hours of travel, so opted to fly to Chicago and start from there. Finally, though I worried about undertaking this journey in winter, I learned that trains are far less affected by weather than planes. My plans fell into place. 

We flew out on a Tuesday evening for Chicago. In 1984, we had only a five-hour stopover in the Windy City between the arrival of the train from Pittsburgh and our next departure, during which we made a speedy visit to the Museum of Science and Industry. I have zero memories of the museum, only a sense of rushing about. For C’s first visit to Chicago, I wanted more than a few hours. 

Chicago would be the coldest stop on our itinerary. It could have been really, really chilly, but we had a beautiful crisp winter day. In the morning, C and I went to the Shedd Aquarium. I have long loved visiting aquariums and have instilled this same feeling in my daughter. Together we have visited amazing aquariums all over the world. The Shedd is one of the best for many reasons, but it is also one of the few where one can see beluga whales. They also had, to our delight, an exhibit on Lake Malawi. 

We spent nearly four hours at the Aquarium. C wanted to go back to the hotel room and vegetate, but I wanted to force march her downtown. I won. It was too lovely of a day and, starting the next afternoon we would be largely confined to a train for 40 hours, so I wanted to stretch my legs while I could. We had a nice, long walk alongside Lake Michigan to Millennium Park. We stopped to see the 45-foot tall Christmas tree and to watch ice skaters just below the famous Cloud Gate sculpture known as “The Bean.” Unfortunately, the Bean was inaccessible during the renovation of the Plaza. From there we took a long walk back to our hotel through the downtown streets of Chicago. 

Besides my five-hour visit to the city in 1984, I had only visited Chicago twice before. Once around 1995, I spent a few days visiting a friend of mine doing her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and then again for a long weekend around 2006 when I ran the Chicago Half Marathon. Visiting made me first think it odd that I have spent so little time in one of my country’s greatest cities; there is so much to see and do. But also I realized how much had changed since my visits. When my sisters and I visited the Museum of Science and Industry in 1984, it was free of charge. Today it would cost $122.70 for our entourage. There was no Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago until 2009 and the city’s tallest building, the Willis Tower, was called the Sears Tower during my previous visits having only been renamed in 2009. I am now officially one of those people who waxes lyrical or gushes annoying, depending on your perspective, about “the way things used to be.” 

That evening, C and I headed to the Nederlander Theater to see a Chicago performance of the musical Hamilton. C and I have become enthusiasts of musical theater. Hamilton would be our fifth of the year after Aladdin in New York, We Will Rock You on our Norwegian fjord cruise ship, Wicked in London, and Evita in Washington, D.C., though it is the only musical C really asked to see. I am not sure when or where she first learned about it, but during the year she spent the 4th grade in the U.S. she became quite into it. She watched the play on Disney+ with our Malawian nanny, she sang the songs in the shower and with friends, and she dressed as Hamilton for Halloween in 2022. Tickets in New York were more than my wallet could spare, but they were more affordable in Chicago. It was a treat to surprise her with the show and the performance was spectacular. 

Our second day in Chicago was not even a full day as our train would depart at 14:50. I looked into us trying to squeeze some activity in during the morning but though my 1984-self certainly could cram in a quick visit to a museum (no doubt encouraged by my mother) and I am sure my 1995- and 2006-selves would surely have given it a go, my 2024-self did not want to be rushed. C was keen on a visit to the Field Museum, but the recommended visit time of four hours meant there was not enough time. I checked if we might visit the top of the Willis Tower, only a 10-minute walk from our hotel, but the morning times were all sold out. So we slept in. I thought that a good move given I did not know how well we might sleep on the train the next two nights. And I walked over to a nearby supermarket to get us lunch and some provisions for the train.

Then after lunch in the comfort of our hotel room, we packed up our belongings and made the short walk over to Chicago’s Union Station. Among throngs of harried commuters, excited families in matching pajama sets awaiting their trip on Chicago’s version of the Polar Express, and other travelers off on all sorts of travel near and far across the nation, we awaited the boarding call for our own train, the Southwest Chief, bound for Los Angeles and stops in-between. Our short stopover in Chicago had already come to an end.