Together Kat and I have visited some great cities. New York and San Francisco (twice each) are at the top. We have lived and worked in New Orleans before and after Katrina, and in the DFW metroplex through our kids’ high school years. From our DFW base we toured San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. We loved our all time favorite home in Raleigh, and have passed through Atlanta often enough it feels like we know the place. D.C. has been a vacation destination twice, once at Christmas. Of the places we’ve not visited, Chicago is atop the list of Not Yets. Last November Kat decided “We’re going!”

She arranged a hotel, booked our flights, looked into the ways of Uber vs cabs, and researched things to do. To that list I contributed “See a Cubs game in Wrigley Field”. Everything else was built around the ideal timing for a day game in that storied old ballpark which seats nearly 40,000 on the shores of Lake Michigan in a very nice residential section of the city. We hit upon five days’ stay; enough to get a feel for the personality of a great city; not so much as to risk wasting time where we realized we didn’t want to be.

Our flight schedule called for an 11:30 a.m. departure from Atlanta with a 12:45 arrival. Our summer base is in Georgia’s mountains 100 miles from Hartsfield-Jackson. Under ideal conditions that’s less than a two hour drive, but Ideal rarely occurs in workday hours. So when should we set out for the airport? Kat liked 7:00 a.m. I figured we could make it leaving at 8:00. We left at 6:30.

Good thing! Despite dry clear weather, our working lads and ladies of Atlanta were so driven to get to work on time that 30 of the 50 miles of urban & suburban ATL were navigated under what Googlemaps displays as red line congestion. We returned our rental car and passed through security just in time to find a seat at our departure gate a few minutes before first call for boarding.

Once seated and just before the plane left our gate the captain came to our row of seats. “Mr. Elder?” Yes. “Is today your birthday?” It is. “Well, we at United Airlines hope you have a really good one, and we’ve got a little something for you!” How did he know? Big Business knows more about its market than we can imagine. Minutes before takeoff the steward from First Class made his way past the curtain with three glasses of champagne. The third was for Taylor Turner in the window seat next to Kat. TT is on United’s payroll, striving to get a lateral into a flight attendant gig, and as luck had it a native of Chicago removed to Atlanta. She and Kat had an hour-long conversation lost on me thanks to engine noise. When the coach steward passed to ask if we wanted any drink or nourishment, I declined: No, the Captain spoiled us with champagne. “I said Anything”! More champagne works for me! Kat agreed, but Taylor smilingly replied “I’d like a chocolate martini and a little bottle of Tito’s vodka.” Our orders were filled, but I envied Taylor’s.

The plane landed at O’Hare on time and a silent cabbie drove us to our hotel on the Chicago River, just across from Trump Tower. We did not let his name in ten foot chromed letters spoil our trip. Rather, we used it as a landmark to navigate the way home.

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