I woke up excited. Chicago is one of my three or so favorite American cities (the others being Los Angeles and a third which varies from year to year). I love to explore Chicago.

  

We wanted desperately to have breakfast at the Ohio House Coffee Shop. It looked wonderful. We found it, went in, had a seat, got menus, and then…nothing. No one would take our order. No one would bring us silverware or drinks. No one would acknowledge our presence. The waitresses were chatty and attentive to the patrons at the counter, most of whom they seemed to know. But no one would say a word to us. After a reasonable amount of time, we left.

Apparently, if they don’t know you, you aren’t allowed to eat at the Ohio House Coffee Shop in Chicago. So they can pretty much rot in hell. We ended up at a Potbelly around the corner, which was OK, if vaguely unsatisfying.

   

We took a rainy walk around The Loop and visited Marshall Field’s (no, it will never be Macy’s) and Carson’s just for architectural purposes. We oohed and aahed over the Louis Sullivan buildings and the more modern treats as well. It was a very photo-intensive day.

 

OK. I cheated and grouped all the photos from The Loop here together. It seemed to make sense, and that’s why we’re wearing different clothes (and standing in vastly different weather) in some of them.

    

    

    

    

I was very excited to have finally seen the Bob Newhart building, not to mention the 15,000th 7-Eleven location in the world. Both have plaques.

 

We had dinner with my old friend Rae (who I hadn’t seen in nearly ten years, I think) and her Rob at a bar whose name escapes me right now. But it was good.

  

After being a bit horrified by the tube of Anal-Ese we found on the headboard of our bed (no, it wasn’t ours), we checked out of our nondescript motel and had a similarly nondescript fast food breakfast before briefly exploring downtown Cincinnati.

I really want to spend more time here. It’s one of those midwestern cities I love, the ones that used to be much bigger and more important than they are now, and look it. Most people know Cincinnati — if they know it at all — as the headquarters of Kroger and the home of WKRP. But it has a pretty massive and attractive downtown area surrounded by interesting neighborhoods in varying stages between scary decay and scary gentrification.

We also found another great radio station that played the Dead Milkmen and the Pixies, and which has apparently switched to a considerably less tolerable format since our trip.

  

After a stop by Pamida, we made our way to Indianapolis to have lunch with my friend Bob. Those of you who have been reading the site for a long time may remember that Bob made the suggestion that led to my first online cross-country road trip in 1997. Thus, Indy has always been a necessary stop on any trip that takes me in the general vicinity.

We had lunch at an MCL Cafeteria that was much better than the one in Columbus, and then took the nickel tour of Indianapolis, including my favorite old Kroger on Tenth Street.

We arrived in Chicago to find that every road into the city was under construction. It’s amazing the detrimental effect that having only two lanes of freeway capacity into the third largest city in America will have, even on a Sunday night. We finally made it to our Best Western in the Rogers Park/Loyola area, and were amazed at how nice (and cheap) the room was. We had dinner nearby, stopped by Dominicks for provisions, and called it a night.

Early tomorrow morning, we’re off to Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, and assorted points in between and on the way. I will not be answering email and I will not be posting from the road. So don’t expect this space to change much in the next two weeks.

Au revoir.

As promised, the first Triad installment and some additions to the Charlotte page are now available for your perusal in the Photography section.

Far be it from me to rain on San Francisco’s parade, but — with the exception of this one — almost every story (and video) I’ve seen about this week’s opening of new mall on Market Street suggests that it was some sort of historic preservation triumph that saved the old Emporium store.

It just ain’t true.

Despite all the grand pronouncements from city leaders about how great it is to be standing in the middle of it, there is no Emporium store left. It was torn down in 2004. The only things that remain from the building are the Market Street facade and the interior dome, and even the dome has been relocated. No other walls were spared, nor was anything else other than these two architectural features.

It’s nice that SF has its spiffy new mall, because heaven knows San Francisco needs nothing quite so much as it needs another mall. It’s lovely they integrated these features into the new building they built. But the old Emporium building is not there anymore. It’s just plain silly to pretend that it is. I won’t make an argument about whether that’s good or bad, but can someone please at least acknowlege that it’s a fact?