Cruising the Great Lakes – Chicago on our own

Chicago was my idea of heaven in my childhood. My father did legal work for the Illinois Central Railroad and part of his retainer was a train pass. Every Thanksgiving we boarded the Panama Limited in Jackson for the overnight ride to Chicago. A Pullman bedroom accommodated the three of us. While in Chicago we always stayed at the Palmer House and took in at least one "Broadway" musical -- usually by Rodgers & Hammerstein. One year we took in Rigoletto at a puppet opera. I enjoyed the show, but never became a fan of Grand Opera. We always ate at least once at Henrici's and my father was saddened when it closed in 1962 (torn down to build the Civic Center). These expeditions would have been even more fun could my brother have joined us, but he was off at school.

My favorite things were:

• Revolving doors and escalators. You may have to be a small child from small town Mississippi to understand how exotic this was back in the 1950s!
• Marshall Field's Department Store, which had animated Christmas scenes in the store windows. Nowadays these are found in every suburban shopping center, but in the 1950s I thought they were magical. There was an atrium with a many-stories-tall Christmas tree.
• The Field Museum, which had dinosaur bones and other natural history displays.
• The Christmas Parade. We had a Christmas Parade in Vicksburg too, but it was nothing like this. I had heard of the Macy's Parade in NYC, but I couldn't image anything better than Chicago's.

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Other than staying at the Palmer House, visiting the Field Museum, catching a play (Hamilton!), and traversing any number of revolving doors and escalators, everything we did was new.

• Day 1: Arrival & Art
• Day 2:
  • Architecture River Tour
  • Field Museum

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