Kiwis and Fairy Bread

15 June 2025

It was a beautiful day to explore this city. From 8am to 10 pm we walked, talked, ate, sailed and thoroughly enjoyed Chicago.

We rose early in order to grab a table at Meli’s for breakfast. A local young man had told us it was much better and far less expensive than the self-proclaimed “best breakfast in the country” diner next door to our building. Well, he was wrong. Mike’s breakfast sandwich was barely toasted soggy bread filled with scrambled eggs and diced cheap ham. The hash browns were equally unappealing. My crème brûlée French toast was just deep fried bread sitting on a bit of thin pudding topped with soapy-tasting whipped something. Deep fried French toast?! I tried to like it but it was too much grease for me. Upon my return to the apartment I ate a whole carrot. Never had a carrot tasted so good. Mike recovered with a bowl of my homemade granola. SO when in Chicago, don’t go to Meli’s.

But a bad breakfast did not a bad day make. Our plan was to take the River Walk to Millennium Park, walk a bit of the Lake Michigan coast and take a water taxi back.

The river walk was lovely! Teal water flows through a valley of sky scrapers of concrete and glass in gravity defying shapes. Countless bridges of solid, rusty iron cross the river every few hundred feet. Tour boats and water taxis, kayaks and motor boats, even ski-doos all sail past. Music plays from bars. Murals line walls. People sit on colorful Adirondack chairs, on green lawns, on garden ledges and on stools at bars and cafes. There are green and lush floating gardens. Kids carry fishing poles, looking for a good spot. A fountain periodically spouts water in an arc across the entire river. It a jostling, fun and lively place.

But it wasn’t always so. Inside the McCormick Riverwalk and Chicago Museum we learned of the rather dark past of this gleaming spot. From surviving first hand accounts, the people who lived and worked along here were miserable and depressed. In the 1800’s the river was filled with sewage, farm waste and rotting carcasses from the livestock industry. Then about 100 years ago, someone realized that this was all really bad and that maybe if the river was clean, it would be better for everyone. And so began a major engineering project and environmental clean up that reinvented and rejuvenated the city. Clearly (literally and figuratively) it worked.

Inside the museum-within-a-bridge we looked at the actual huge gear system that is still used to open and close the draw bridge. All the iron bridges can open and close, and do so in the spring and fall for sail boats.

My father would have loved this spot. As a child at the Jersey shore, my father used to take me to the canal to “watch the boats crash”. They never did and I thought it was boring. But he always enjoyed it. In fact, we did it together for the last time just this past summer. And I tearily thought about Dad as I watched so many boats travel under the bridges.

So here is a shout out to all of the wonderful father’s out there. Mike and I were very blessed with such loving ones. And, it being our first Father’s Day without them, missed very much.

Continuing our walk we found ourselves at last on the shores of Lake Michigan. It really does look like a calm ocean. Sail boats of all sizes surrounded the local yacht club which was, brilliantly, housed in a vintage steamship. It was a short walk to Millennium Park where we walked through a colorful, creative playground and then across the Frank Gehry Bridge. A perfect compliment to his music venue, the stainless steel curved like a snake through the park and over a highway.

After another soggy sandwich for lunch we went to see The Cloud Gate, commonly known as “The Bean” is a Chicago must-see. What a cool piece of art! It is huge, gleaming and so interactive. People were crowding around it, taking pictures from every angle. Looking at themselves and other people. Touching the shiny surface and leaving their hand prints. I loved it.

We got talking to a portrait photographer named Paul. He told us of an interesting trend: people do not want to smile in photographs anymore. They want to look serious, noble, brave. But he likes them smiling. We agree.

Onto another interactive work of art called The Crown Fountain. So much laughter! Kids in bare feet run around and play in the squirting water. Adults did too. I joined them to enjoy the warm slate floor, with cool water coming from above and below. It was a party!

Half an hour south into the park and we came across another, equally impressive water feature. Buckingham Fountain is as big and impressive at its name implies. No one was swimming in this one though. But it was cool to see the water spouting from the mouths of life sized sea monsters.

At this point we were tired, so we hopped on a water taxi that took us along Lake Michigan to another water taxi that took us down the river. Breezy, bouncy, relaxing.

Back to the apartment for a nice beef and rice stir fry with broccoli and then out again at sundown. We wanted to see an art installation projected on an old riverfront building. Now, I didn’t quite get what the artist was trying to say in the surreal film. A sleeping woman’s eyes become part of a butterfly mask that gets caught in the sands of an hour glass? The second feature was an animation of Chicago in colored shapes I liked that one.

And after walking ten and half miles we found we really liked Chicago. But I do have to wonder, is this the real city? It’s all manicured and beautiful. Other than the runners and employees on the River Walk it was all tourists. What were other neighborhoods like? We find out tomorrow.