606 Trail in Chicago

This is the best new extremely short trail in the Chicago area. All 2.7 miles and 30 minutes of it. I can prove it, here's the video.

Winner of the Tour d'Sexy.

Mary and I hit the new 606 trail this morning. This is a real marvel of urban bicycle / running / baby-jogger-stroller planning and is a MUST for anyone living in the six-county area.

We exited the Kennedy at Armitage, fumbled around a bit on the back streets, and found a place to park near the 606's east end. It's an old elevated train right-of-way running through the mid-north side of the city, basically yuppie central. Bicycles have a nice two-lane divided highway down the middle. Runners have a rubberized strip on either side to minimize the impact on their plantar fascias, or fibular cerebellums, or whatever. Dog owners have a three-mile linear excretion zone.

There are little pull-offs with benches or picnic tables. Beautiful (and we hope dog-proof) gardens.

My goodness, what a great people-watching opportunity. My favorite today: the guy in the FULL Mexican Lucha Libre wrestling outfit, and his kid wearing the Superman cape.

All too soon, we returned to our starting point. Mary was ready to continue our ride, so I suggested we head to the lake front path, about two miles east. About 1.5 miles east on Armitage, we hit Lincoln Park Zoo. Surprised that we could just wander on in — admission is free! — we locked up the bikes (two cable locks and a U-lock) and wandered on in.

OK, I'd eaten all the Kahlua pork and
macaroni salad by this point.

We checked out the flamingos (pink, how cliché) then saw a zebra and white-lipped deer, both of which appeared to be suicidal, and perhaps only delaying their exit until they could obtain heavy weaponry, starting with grenade launchers, and take a few hundred humans with them. Mary and I both agreed that zoos were depressing, and decided to leave post haste.

A short ride up Clark Street brought us to the little storefront "Aloha Eats," one
of our favorite places in the city. They serve up delicacies we've only had in the islands, starting with spam masubi: a soap-bar-sized slab of sticky rice topped with a slice of fried spam (yes, actual spam, wonderful spam) and wrapped in a sheet of seaweed. It's a carby rice, salt/umami-savory/fishy combination that's unlike anything else. Yum.

Personally, I'd like to live in Chicago.  But that's just me.