Culver City P.O.: Chicago and Kalamazoo

Monday, May 14, 2012

Chicago and Kalamazoo

It’s always good to get out of town and see how people live in the rest of the country. Otherwise it’s sometimes hard to remember that there’s life outside L.A.

First stop: Portillo's

I presented a paper at a conference in Kalamazoo, MI, last Thursday, so we flew into Chicago on Wednesday. Our first stop: Portillo’s, where Tim quickly ate not one but two hot dogs for dinner. (We’d been there before!) The next day we rented a car and drove around the southern end of Lake Michigan, through three states to Kalamazoo. The road reminded me of central California—lots of small farming towns and fast-food restaurants—only much, much greener. A perfect day for a long drive—almost impossible to imagine everything covered in snow just a few months ago.

The former “celery capital of the world,” Kalamazoo is now a lovely mid-west town (population 77,000) with a nicely revitalized early 20^th-century downtown area. We were hoping to sightsee a bit more, but realized (almost too late) that Michigan is on Eastern Standard Time—we were still on Central (!)—sending me scrambling to get my presentation ready. We left early the next morning to return to Chicago.

Because Tim was sweet enough to accompany me all the way to Kalamazoo for a 15-minute paper, he got to pick what we did in Chicago. Not too surprising, then, that baseball was the main theme for the rest of our trip. The White Sox were in town, so Tim used his radio contacts to finagle 10^th-row seats, just left of homeplate. I was worried we were going to be killed by a fast-flying foul ball; but by the end of the game, I had become a White Sox fan—not too hard to do when you’re so close you can practically smell the players sweat!

Yes, we were this close!

Beer and margueritas sold in the stands

We took the subway out to Wrigley Field the next morning to tour the stadium. Wrigley, of course, is the oldest baseball field in the U.S. and still one of the most beautiful. The weather had suddenly turned gloomy, but our spirits were far from dampened as we got to see the Cubs’ clubhouse and sit in the dugout. A must for anyone who loves baseball.

Cubs' clubhouse

We also went to the top of the Hancock Building to see the city in all its glory, plus sampled some of the local cuisine. My favorite, though, was Chick-Fil-A, a growing national chain that recently opened in Los Angeles. Its mascot: a cow that wears a t-shirt imploring folks to “Eat mor chikin!”