With our hospitable friends Jo and Scott putting us up, driving us around, and feeding us, we enjoyed a mini-vacation to Illinois. DAY ONE: Jo and Scott took us to Petterino’s, one of Chicago’s power restaurants, where caricatures of actors, politicians and media figures cover the walls. I’m happy that we were seated nect to Studs Turkel, Irv Kupcinet, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. The food was very good, too! DAY TWO: Ginny and I paid a visit 
to Lake Michigan. Afterwards, Jo, Scott, Ginny and I took an architecture boat cruise down (up?) the Chicago River, I expected to like the venerable Art Deco masterpieces, like the Tribune Building and the Wrigley Building, but I really liked the 
postmodern structures, like the shimmering green 333 West Wacker Drive and the seemingly curvy Vista Tower. In the afternoon, we visited the Art Institute of Chicago. There we saw an exhibit of Georgia O’Keefe‘s New York paintings, of which I
was unaware, plus a bunch of other–well, let’s call them masterpieces by Wood, Sargent, Hopper, Seurat, a whole gaggle of impressionists, and Paris Street; Rainy Day, by Gustav Caillebotte. Dinner was at a restaurant called Roux. DAY THREE: In the 
morning we headed to the Field Museum. We spent a lot of time with their dinosaurs, including the amazing Sue. At more than 40 feet long and 13 feet tall at the hip, Sue, a native of South Dakota, is 
physically the largest Tyrannosaurus rex specimen discovered (Sue’s actual skull is displayed separately from the rest of her bones). Sue has holes in her jaw, possibly caused by an infection. The museum speculates that it was probably so painful for Sue to eat that she may have starved to death. In the evening, we took an underwhelming Chicago Crime Tour, which consisted mostly of visits to places where things used to be. We did see the alley where John Dillinger croaked. DAY FOUR: On to Springfield! There people are all about the Lincolns! We saw the attractive and comfortable home and neighborhood where Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln lived until they moved to Washington. At the Carriage restaurant, Abe is 
on the burgers. We visited Lincoln Museum, where, to our delight, we found that Tim Russert is still working. They have many interesting exhibits, among them a swatch of the dress worn by Lauren Keene, star of Our American Cousin. The rusty 
marks on the upper right are Lincoln’s bloodstains. At dinner, we tried to split the local delicacy, the horseshoe—burger, Texas Toast, French Fries, cheese sauce, and, for balance, scallions. We couldn’t finish. DAY FIVE: On the campus of the University of Chicago, we saw Nuclear Energy, a sculpture by Henry Moore that sits where Enrico Fermi and friends set off the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942. For dinner we had pan pizza at Pequod–very good!–then closed the trip with a visit to Second City.
