Late July Trip From Chicago to the Coast

The late July trip, Chicago end of it first. From up high you can look straight down on Millennium Park — the Bean a silver blob on its plaza, the trellis arcing over the Pritzker Pavilion lawn, and past all of it Lake Michigan, the harbor packed with sailboat masts. People call Chicago a beach town and from that height it tracks: the water runs right up against the park with almost nothing in between.

Walked Michigan Avenue under the Aon Center and the Prudential towers, then came back after dark for the Riverwalk. Marina City's corncob balconies had colored lights strung along a few of the floors, and the Wrigley Building glowed white over the Wabash Avenue bridge. The river throws all of it back at you in pieces.

Then the coast, and a completely different kind of water. Palm trees on the bluff, gray sky, and the girls straight into the surf with boogie boards while I held down a beach chair under the straw hat. They came back up the sand dripping, one green board, one white with red rails, goggles still dangling from their wrists.