Walking And Busing Around Chicago

...Continued from yesterday:

     The purpose of our trip this time around was to spend some time with Miguel's awesome family, in town visiting  from Arizona.

                                                Brisa, Lolita, Miguel, Victor,  Jose Luis, Carlos,

...and Dulce, here with Carlos and Jose Luis.

         The plan for Friday was that we'd meet up in the middle of the morning for a day of bopping and bus-hopping around the city,
         But first breakfast, of course,

  ...for which Tom and I headed to The Bongo Room, a popular breakfast spot a few blocks from our hostel.

     This place generally makes the best breakfasts; however, as you will note below, the chef on duty on this day evidently has problems negotiating a sunny-side up egg, as both of our meals arrived with a case of broken yolks.  I believe in the case of mine,  the cook tried to salvage my broken sunnyside-up egg by flipping it over and making it into a sort of mongrel over-easy egg.

My eggs.

Tom's eggs.

     We didn't complain, though.  We don't like to complain.  And besides, even with the broken yolks, the eggs were tasty, and the toast and potatoes were perfection.

     After breakfast we walked back to the hostel

...passing this shop along the way:

I guess you can get about anything you want in Chicago.

     Soon as we got our day necessities  together we headed back out again and began walking towards Logan Square, where Miguel and Claire live, by way of the 606,

...which is a retired  elevated train route that has been turned into a walkway and biking path.

     After a few blocks on the 606 we met up with Carlos, Lolita, Claire, Brisa, and Dulce, who'd been walking in our direction from Claire's house.

     Planning to meet up later in the day with Miguel, Victor and Jose Luis, who were touring the Northwestern University  campus, we headed for the bus stop,

...stopping along the way at the famous Wicker Park Walgreen's that used to be a gilded-age bank.

      We got off at Wrigleyville, from where we caught a second bus to our first destination of the day,

...Wrigley Field,

...the visitation of which had been on the bucket list of some of Miguel's baseball-loving family members.

     We then took another bus from Wrigleyville,

...to Lincoln Park,

... the Botanical Gardens,

...the Lincoln Park Conservatory,

...and  the zoo, where we stopped for a breath-takingly expensive lunch of hot dogs and french fries.

     They were really good dogs and fries, though.  Or maybe it was that, as the saying goes, hunger is the best seasoning.

     We met up with Miguel, Victor and Jose Luis at the zoo,

...and after visiting the animals we strolled around  Lincoln Park,

...where there were several wedding shoots in progress.

     From the park we walked to Lake Shore Drive,

...and the beach along the shore of Lake Michigan.

     Some of us went for a swim in the lake and some of us, like non-swimmer me, just rolled up our cuffs and waded along the water's edge, which I for one found satisfactorily refreshing.

      After our swim we hopped another bus that left Tom and I off in Wicker Park close to our hostel,

...then continued on to Claire and Miguel's Logan Square neighborhood.

        We had one final destination for the day, and that was dinner at Pizano's,

...a Wicker Park pizzeria several blocks from our hostel,

...to which Tom and I walked while the others took the bus from Logan Square

...and where we were able to snag an outdoor table.

     We ordered three pizzas,

...one pepperoni,

...one Canadian bacon deluxe,

...and one pineapple and spinach.  (To each his own, right?)

     Now, I've had many's the great slice in my over half a century of pizza-noshing on this planet, but I can unequivocally declare that there is no better pizza anywhere than Pizano's pizza.*  The crust of this deep-dish pizza has a je ne sais quoi -ness that sets it apart from every other pizza under creation, and the sauce, the sauce, the sauce...how do I even begin to describe this sauce except to say that every time I take that first bite of  a Pizano's slice my taste buds are electrified by 10,000 volts of deliciousness?
     Anyway, Pizano's makes one dang good pizza!

     After polishing off a goodly portion of our pizzas we gathered up our left-overs boxes and walked several blocks through the festive Friday night lights and crowds,

...to Stan's, a popular Wicker Park doughnutery, for dessert.

    However when the decisive moment came Tom and I  bailed, leaving  all the deliciousness  to the others,

...and instead made our way back to The Crotch,

...and our hostel, which was also nicely lit up in the spirit of the neighborhood.

To be continued...

     *The second best pizza in the world can be found, surprisingly, at a little restaurant in Springfield, Ohio called the Hickory Inn.