travel journals, part II

June 7th, 7:25am. In Elkhart, Indiana and 110 miles to Chicago. What to do in the Windy City for 4 hours before catching the Empire Builder to points west?* (Suggestions from Facebook friends: deep dish pizza, the Art Institute of Chicago, boozing it up in the open air, walk by the lake front, and pizza & Hot Chocolate. We ended up just wandering around, got an Italian beef and a pizza for lunch at Portillo's, and headed back to the station. And it was gorgeous, despite the ridiculous sunburn I got even though I tried to jump from shadow to shadow.)


June 7th, 5:43pm. Got pretty badly sunburned wandering downtown Chicago today but complementary champagne & chocolates are doing wonders for the pain. Dinner in an hour. I wonder what charming elderly couple will befriend us at this meal. In the meantime a delicious IPA and an hour of reading The Lost Legends of New Jersey as we head out of Columbus, Wisconsin. (It was Dorothy, our sleeper car attendant, who brought us champagne and chocolates. She also offered me aloe for my sunburn and brought me a mini Ciao Bella lemon sorbet at lunch time one day when we decided to eat peanut butter sandwiches in our room rather than a full meal in the dining car. She got a shout-out in this LA Times article about traveling by train -- the very routes we took. She was pretty much awesome.)


*Italicized bits were Facebook status updates.