The Architectural Feats of Tourist Traps
Part two: things I'm missing - including Chicago Pizza and tourist traps
Hi friend, I’m Sasha and I write stories about my 2 1/2 years living on the road in a motorhome. Most times, you can catch me in your inbox on Mondays.
This week, I’m putting out 3 mini memories of some of the things I’ve been missing the last year.
Want to read short travel stories each Monday?
“You’ve got two minutes,” the lady taking tickets ahead of us said, “then you have to move on for the next people.”
Jeremiah and I squished in together as the sun set on the Willis Tower that we so fondly referred to as the Sears Tower.
Tourist things.
I shuffled forward slowly, my hips grazing the belt stretched between the stanchions that smashed people together like obedient cows. Every two minutes, we stepped nearer our destination. I glanced between the three available skyboxes that draped over the cityscape of Chicago.
Two teenage girls in torn jeans held up the peace sign as another took pictures, while a lady with a thick afro did a handstand next door. A third family made sure the mom and dad were kissing right when the picture was taking, eliciting gags from the kids.
By the time it was our turn in the glass box, the sun was gone, and the night brought a navy blanket highlighted by twinkle lights of buildings below.
The day had drenched us in humidity and warmth, and our bellies were full of sushi and sake. Three days in Chicago. Or was it two? The days were short and full.
The lakeshore we had visited earlier was littered with unmasked people jogging, biking, and if memory proves right, which it often does not, flying kites. Our feet ached from hours of meandering through the Field Museum.
A normal tourist visit. I hadn’t even wanted to go up to the Sears, sorry, Willis Tower, but we decided when in Chicago, well, do as the tourists do. It would be many months before we couldn’t consider perching overtop the Chicago lights because of mask mandates and 6-foot-radii.
This month, March, was the first month we could have deliveries to our doorstep for the first time in years.
On dry ice, after traveling for well over a day, Chicago-style pizza from Lou Malnati’s arrived at our doorstep. With it, memories arrived of a time when we could wait an hour in a restaurant lobby while our stomachs growled.
The pizza wasn’t quite the same. Nothing is quite the same. After a year, the new normal still feels anything but.
Next week, I get my second vaccine shot - I’m lucky that Chattanooga is rolling out the vaccine smoothly. I think of the ways I would have celebrated this if I could have: in a different time. Maybe cheersing friends in a restaurant: a restaurant so busy in downtown Chicago that our pizza would be running late, but it would be fine. Who could possibly care? Friends laughing and celebrating together with overpriced beers.
Just one of the many things I miss and won’t take for granted again: Chicago pizza parlors for granted anymore and tourist traps.
Thanks for traveling and reminiscing with me,
Sasha
Down the Rabbit Hole:
The Willis Tower was built to house all the Sears Roebuck and Company employees- a whopping 350,000 people in 1969. After the construction of the building was finished in 1973, it remained the tallest building for twenty-five-freaking years. My dad’s an architect, just recently retired, and I’m obsessed with interesting buildings like the Willis Tower, even though every time I type the name I have to backspace and replace “Sears” with “Willis.”
Lou Malnati’s, the super-popular Chicago pizza chain, is celebrating fifty years of operation this month - which was a happy coincidence when I ordered the pie. Is it the best Chicago pizza you’ll ever eat? Probably not. Is it good? Yep.