For the best parks and lakefront, go anywhere south of Diversey, say, at 2800 North. The hard-legged, at day's end, might find themselves 10 miles north of downtown in lovely Evanston, first suburb north of the city limits. I pooped out after about seven miles of pavement pounding, in Andersonville, a neighbourhood that trades heavily on its former Swedish ethnicity, supplanted now by a very beguiling mix of Middle Easterners, gender-conscious womyn, Hispanics, hipsters, plain folks, and a yuppie or two strayed from the ridiculously gentrified neighbourhoods you walked through to get here. But it doesn't matter how far you go, and where, exactly, you stop for rest and refreshment. The reward is a stroll up a street that cuts a very revealing slice through the country's homiest big city.
Autumn days can be rapturous, but never, ever count on it.
Calorie-pinching and nutritional correctness go against the municipal grain, particularly if you're doing the street food. Take a look at the locals. Carl Sandburg was telling a partial truth when he called this the city of big shoulders. People here are, in fact, very friendly, but not the way they're friendly in Mayberry. Inc. All rights reserved.