Arrived back in Chicago on Thursday morning, May 30, on the Lake Shore Limited. My circumnavigation of the country has been completed! A few figures: In 25 days, I visited 31 states and traveled almost 8,500 miles by rail (and many more by streetcar, subway, bicycle, ferry, bus, car, running and walking - lots and lots of walking).
I’m feeling good. Maybe I’ll do another lap. (Just kidding - although I’m taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Columbus, Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon, so I’ll do a second lap for about three hours.)
For lunch I went to the Berghoff, a classic, wood-paneled, old-line German restaurant in the Loop. When I worked as an Amtrak waiter in 1975, it was a traditional place for crew members to go at the end of a run for a sandwich and a beer. Back then, the bar didn’t have stools, so you’d stand at the rail, like in the old black and white photographs.
At Union Station I met Antje and Jan, two Germans who are bicycling across much of the United States. They'd ridden across the Appalachians and then taken the train to Chicago, and next are taking a train to Denver and then riding to Astoria in Oregon. I offered to buy them lunch at the Berghoff but they said they could get German food at home and instead rode off to do a bicycle tour along the Chicago lakefront in between trains. Good choice. I would have done the same thing.
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| Union Station, Chicago |
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| Map showing where I went on my trip |
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Jan and Antje from Germany,
cycling across the United States |
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| The Berghoff, in the Loop |
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| The bar at the Berghoff |
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