The sun beats ferociously. An ice cream cart jingles. Old men play volleyball shirtless in the distance. Amidst these simple, monotonous joys of Chicago in August is a tent for Edgewater’s first “Sandcastle Open” along with ten teams of adults and children who have been building structures out of sand since nine this morning. Some of the competitors are actually trying, spraying mixtures of glue and water to hold their spires in place. Others, less so: co-sponsor of the event Alderman Harry Osterman’s team erected a half-hearted generic sandcastle, mounted a blue campaign poster for him on one of its towers, and disappeared. The image conjured is one of four wide-shouldered men in suits descending on the beach from a secret service van, filling a mold with sand, and then disappearing again, after a few shaken hands. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael McColly

For me, summer in Chicago has become the season to hike. I don’t mean a stroll through Grant Park or a long walk home from the bar after a breakup. I mean a purposeful pilgrimage across the city. I’m talking about urban hiking. For years, as a hiker and fitness freak, I packed my gear and headed west or east to the mountains of Appalachia to get my nature fix and break free from the city. But after a walking tour of the UK, where people walk everywhere and trails link city to country to coast, I came home and looked out at this vast metropolis and asked myself: why can’t I hike here? A few weeks later, I walked to the Indiana Dunes from Rogers Park, and I’m discovering you can walk anywhere with a good pair of shoes, an adventuresome spirit and the willingness to break old ways of seeing urban landscapes.

The key to urban walking is distance. A three- or five-mile walk won’t do. You have to push beyond your idea of how far is far. You have to treat the hike as if it were a new place, a wilderness of another sort. I have a few rules: no car, no cell phones, no soundtrack to distract you, but, sure, bring a small camera or notebook. This is all about exploring how perception changes when you slow down and look at the landscape at the pace generated by nothing more than your own muscles and will.

Here are a few of my favorite hikes. Living in Rogers Park I’ve explored all three directions, south, north and west. But the joy of this form of recreation is to make your own pilgrimages. Read the rest of this entry »

The Scorpions Tail at Noah's Ark

It’s that time of the year when even adults can get away with acting like kids, when children can enjoy their summer vacation, and when everyone needs to—and can—cool off. The water parks are officially open! Let’s dive into some of the best in the area.

A summer visit to Wisconsin Dells should include a visit to Noah’s Ark. Take the drive early and spend the day in the park lounging in the lazy river or ascending the stairs to the Point of No Return (a giant drop ten stories straight down). Or try their newest attraction, the Scorpion’s Tail, a 400-foot-long enclosed tube slide. noahsarkwaterpark.com

For Spalsh-tastic fun, drive into northwest Indiana’s Deep River Waterpark. Located in Crown Point, Indiana, the drive is less than an hour from Chicago. There’s a wave pool, numerous slides and a kid’s play zone. Specials include Tubin’ Tuesday. deepriverwaterpark.com

If you want a taste of the Outback, try Raging Waves, touted as Illinois’ largest water park. Located in Yorkville, the drive is only forty-five minutes from downtown. Aussie-themed attractions include slides named Tasmanian Twisters and Crocodile Mile. Daily specials include a reduced rate from 3pm to closing. ragingwaves.com Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Matthew Taplinger

No keys. No phone. No money, credit cards or ID. I was sitting on the ground next to Buckingham Fountain staring out toward the darkness that had taken over Michigan Avenue. Slumped up against the concrete, with muddy feet and smelling of sweat and Budweiser, I had just had the best moments of my first Chicago summer.

“What time is it?” I asked the man sitting on the ground next to me. Through his beer goggles he swayed his eyes toward me. He said he didn’t know the time or where his friends were or how he got there.

An hour before, at the MGMT concert, I had left all of my things behind and surrendered to the crowd. Finally.

For Lollapalooza 2010, I splurged and bought three-day passes. For the first two-and-a-half days, I watched a friend of mine crowdsurf during almost every set. It was getting to me. I had to do it.

So, there at MGMT, my crowdsurfing friend and I, accompanied by our mutual friend Jim (Beam), sang all the best songs off of the group’s debut album, “Oracular Spectacular.” Yet again, my friend surfed away into the crowd with a smile. Now it was time for me to decide. At that moment, a favorite song came on. With one last bit of encouragement from Jim, I handed all my belongings to a friend.

“How do I do it?” I asked her, now realizing there must be some type of proper crowdsurfing etiquette.

“She wants to go,” my friend yelled to the large men in front of me.

As they turned around and looked in my direction I squealed, “Lift me up!” Read the rest of this entry »

By John Greenfield

If you’re a car-free Chicagoan, you don’t have to hit up Hertz to take a kick-ass road trip this summer. Here in the nation’s railroad hub, bicycle plus train is a powerful combo, not just for getting around the metro area but the entire Midwest.

Case in point is the beer-soaked bike camping trip my buddies and I took earlier this month along the Mississippi River, across Wisconsin and back using Amtrak and Metra. It was our annual Men’s Trip, a chance for the married guys to take a break from family obligations, and since most of the guys are serious beer snobs we planned our itinerary around brewpub visits. Late spring wind and rain made this tour a bit of a death march for us, but if you’d like to try the route (tinyurl.com/brewpubride) it’d be a blast to ride in July sunshine.

On a Wednesday evening we loaded our touring bikes with tents and sleeping bags and hauled them aboard Amtrak’s Carl Sandburg line to Kewanee, Illinois, near the shoulder of the state. Soon we’re flying west across the prairie past dozens of white modern windmills tinted pink by the setting sun.

When we pull into Kewanee, a sign says we’re in the “Hog Capital of the World,” so down the street at the Pioneer Club I tackle a breaded pork tenderloin horseshoe sandwich. The horseshoe is a downstate Illinois specialty often called “a heart attack on a plate”—white bread, fries and a protein, drowned in cheese sauce.

We camp up the road at a park donated to the city by Fred Francis, an oddball inventor, artist, poet and nudist. In the morning I tour Woodland Palace, the futuristic dream home Francis built on the site in 1890, featuring wind-powered heating and cooling systems, automatic doors and many other clever gadgets. I’m most excited to see his bicycle, with a seat installed over the front wheel so he could carry his wife Jeanne to church. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Akke Monasso

Made from the distilled sap of agave, a cactus the Aztecs held sacred, tequila gained popularity north of the border in a series of waves, starting with the Mexican movie boom of the forties and the postwar cocktail craze of the fifties. It is perhaps best loved as the driving ingredient in the margarita. In ’42, according to legend, a bartender named Pancho Morales got a drink order he didn’t recognized and made up something, a tasty concoction involving tequila, ice, fruit juice and Cointreau. His bluff went over better than he expected. Pancho had accidentally engineered one of the great summer cocktails.

Yes, it’s a hit with aging sorority girls at Bon Jovi karaoke night who want to get housed but also want smoothies. But some saucehounds mock the margarita without ever having enjoyed a real one. If your tequila isn’t 100-percent real agave (as many lower-shelf bottles are not), it’s rum. If it’s not from the Mexican state of Jalisco, it’s technically mezcal, not tequila. If it ain’t real scorpion honey in your glass, you’re not getting that extra kick that kept the Aztecs and Spaniards at each other’s throats for so many years. And let’s not mention those blasphemous “blended” slushy deals. Rocks and salt, period. Read the rest of this entry »

Irish Flag outside Pint in Wicker Park. Pint hired three Irish J1-ers for seasonal work this summer.

By Laura Hawbaker

It’s the end of May, and the invasion has already begun.

Every summer, an influx of Irish flock to Chicago. Like migratory birds, 1400 to 1500 Irish students descend upon the city with J-1 visas in hand. The J-1 is a three-month work visa for students between college semesters. Usually 19-21 years old, they seek out seasonal work—furniture removal, scooping ice cream at Navy Pier, slewing drinks in the beer gardens of an Irish pub. For the span of the summer, these “J-1-ers” work and party hard, sleep by the dozens on air mattresses, then return home.

“J-1-ers don’t tend to travel in ones or twos. They come in twelves,” says Paul Dowling, a former J-1-er who now serves as the Director of Social Services at Chicago Irish Immigrant Support.

Of the thousands who come, anywhere from 550 to 700 make their way to Armitage Hardware, its nondescript windows lined with Girl Scout cookies, tiki torches and barbecue grills for sale. They come seeking one man: Dan O’Donnell.

O’Donnell sits at his paper-strewn desk in the cellar of the hardware store. On the phone, a girl from Sligo asks, “Am I talking to Mr. O’Donnell? He’s a legend over here in Ireland.” Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone over the age of 25 who lived in Chicago in the summer of 1995 cannot forget one particularly cruel stretch that July, a heat wave which led to approximately 750 deaths over a period of five days.

As part of grappling with daytime highs that reached 106 °F, record humidity levels, and nighttime lows that never dipped below eighty degrees, the city’s infrastructure literally crumpled. Power outages were widespread and long lasting.

My elderly Italian grandmother, who lived in the Ravenswood neighborhood on the North Side, never saw a need for air conditioning, and even if she had possessed a window unit, it wouldn’t have done much good without electricity. As an immigrant and survivor of the Great Depression, she didn’t really see why my younger sister and I were whining. “If you’re hot, go sleep outside,” she offered.

At 17 years old, and on my way to beginning my senior year at Lincoln Park High School, I was literally coming of age, and melting while doing so. The idea of sleeping on the street (the hyperbole of a teenage girl) in full view of everyone was almost more than my easily mortified girlhood could stand. Forget about the public safety aspect. Read the rest of this entry »

The city grind makes it hard at times to get back to nature. Pack a picnic or lace up your boots, there’s something out there for everyone.

For an educational trip outdoors, head out to the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center in Willow Springs (9800 Willow Springs Road). Find out about the area’s rich historic past ranging from glacial formations to Indian trails. The Schoolhouse itself is a great location for children to learn while enjoying some fresh air.

In the same vein, visit Graue Mill in Oak Brook (3800 York Road) and see the only working waterwheel gristmill in northern Illinois. The attached museum showcases the inner workings of the mill itself. It is also one of the remaining stations of the Underground Railroad, with a full exhibit with photos and interactive displays.

If plants are more your thing, visit the Garfield Park Conservatory (300 North Central Park) located on Chicago’s West Side. Take the Green Line, getting off at the Central Park Drive station. View prehistoric ferns and lush foliage in any of their multiple greenhouses. Check in with the park for scheduled events or workshops. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Elias Cepeda

Summertime brings people out to their lawns everywhere. Good neighbors may have good fences in the backyard, but front yards welcome exhibitionists, chatty neighbors and strangers who stop by lemonade stands, especially on sunny days. In suburbia, homes are ripe with lawn during the summer, inviting kids in bathing suits and on bikes. Grown-ups hold barbecues and everyone plays ball. In the city, the boundaries dissolve even further. Deprived of personal front yards, we share. We play in the sun together. Like any neighbors trying to share space, we fight sometimes, too. Rather than argue about who gets the tricycle next, our neighbor’s browning grass, or how much the lemonade should go for, we wish Taste of Chicago never got Grant Park, we ask why the pavement’s crumbling and we grumble about the money being spent—or not—on improving our front yard.

It’s a complicated shuffle, especially when Dad isn’t Chief Executive of the Front Lawn. There’s the Park District, of course. They take care of the lawns, but not the ones in Millennium Park. Those are under the Department of Cultural Affairs. And they contract operations out to MB Real Estate, which deals with the day-to-day challenges of a much-loved park. They too contract out some of the work—they hire a cleaning staff to do things like pick up trash, wipe benches and the Bean, and clean bathrooms. “The largest problem about keeping Millennium Park looking good is, as its popularity increases, so does of course the traffic flow,” says Neal Speers, director of operations for the park. “Grass isn’t designed to have 100,000 people walk over it every day,” says Speers, who has to “find the balance of protecting the landscape but still letting people use it.” Read the rest of this entry »