At last, sunshine! Unlike the overcast and rainy previous two days, we were finally going to see Chicago in the sunlight. Which is just as well, as we only had the morning left to do so. Check out at the hotel was at 11am, so we aimed to get all our remaining sightseeing done before then, and then just make our way to O’Hare even though our flight wasn’t until 5pm.
We hadn’t yet seen Grant and Millennium Parks, despite the fact that they were right next to our hotel, so they were the only thing on our agenda that morning. After a quick but satisfying breakfast at the cafĂ© adjoining the hotel we headed across the railway tracks into Grant Park, lingering on the bridge to see if any trains went past for Dave to take pictures for his train-mad son. No such luck, so instead we contented ourselves with looking at the sculptures dotting the park, because it wasn’t as if we hadn’t seen enough this trip. The whole of America is covered in this stuff…

The Chicago skyline from Grant Park
…and then suddenly Dave was off and running. I don’t think I’d ever seen a man move so quickly. Then I heard the sound too and everything clicked: there was a train approaching and Dave wanted a picture. The things parents do for their kids…
Last stop in Grant Park was Buckingham Fountain but that was closed (out of season, again) so we moved onto Millennium Park and the Cloud Gate. This bean-shaped structure was impressively shiny, I honestly can’t believe it hasn’t got scratched and vandalised yet. But maybe everyone just appreciates art, as it was in a great location reflecting the Chicago skyscrapers towering all around it.
There was lots of other art in this park too, including two big video screens that show faces of Chicago residents. A little spooky but fun to watch for a bit. And of course, there were the standard pieces of sculpture littered around again. Someone should tell these artists to pick up their rubbish, save the environment and all that. Maybe you can’t blame them too much since the Art Institute of Chicago is right next door, so there was bound to be some bad influence.

The Cloud Gate in Millennium Park
That was about all we had time for that morning. We quickly stopped off at the Lincoln Statue at Grant Park we missed on our first walk through, before checking out of our hotel and lugging our bags through the city up to Jackson to catch the “L” back to O’Hare. But that proved more troublesome than expected. First we didn’t realise that the Blue line that we wanted to catch had a separate entrance, and then when we finally found the correct entrance, it was blocked off since it was closed that day, with the nearest operating station being up at Clark & Lake. Undeterred, we began walking…
Eventually we got to O’Hare and checked-in. Given we were there early there was no problem with moving our seats next to each other, so we were spared the hassle of the trip over. Next was security… and then I remembered something. When I went to GDC earlier in the year, my manager had warned me that there was nothing in O’Hare beyond security. At the time we thought he was wrong, since there was loads of stuff, but we’d flown in and out of a domestic terminal and this was international… it clicked but it was too late. We were through and there was just a few massively overpriced concessions stands to entertain us for a four hour wait.
The flights home were surprisingly pleasant. From Chicago to Amsterdam there weren’t enough business class passengers so they’d replaced their seats with economy’s, but kept the leg room. And guess where we were sat?! We first had to overcome a minor problem – when they’d moved our seats they obviously hadn’t realised that someone was already sitting on one of them. Thankfully he took it all in good humour… and cottoned on pretty quick that he could get moved to first class, which is what happened. The flight seemed much quicker, maybe an hour shorter, than the other direction too, perhaps because it was carrying both people and cargo.
On that short last leg we had three seats between the two of us and amused ourselves trying to work out our air hostess’ accent, which seemed to be halfway between Dutch (it was KLM) and well-to-do English. Dave’s wife was then on hand to meet us at the airport where his children were very pleased to see him again, and I was lucky enough to score a lift back to my front door.
And that was it, it was all over, the trip I’d been looking forward to for months. All I had left were the memories, plus the jet lag that would take a few days to get rid off. But the trip had served its purpose – we’d seen as much of Mars Hill as we were able, plus managed to spend a lot of time chatting through our ideas about church, aided by our choice of reading (the excellent The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claibourne). At some point soon I’ll have to share some of our thoughts on the matter, and note that I don’t use the word conclusions because we’re far from that.
But for now I’ll close by saying: if you’re ever in the area, give Grand Rapids a try, even if it’s just to hit the bars.