Wolf Therians in Chicago

The mate and I were just in Alabama for a couple of weeks to visit my family. We ate a lot of fresh catfish and venison. We also attended a couple Mardi Gras parades. Seeing my family was nice. It was on the way back to Ontario when we had the real, unexpected adventure. We didn’t want to drive through Nashville traffic, so our GPS picked an alternate route that took us to Chicago, Illinois - where one of our brake calipers decided to come unattached to the bracket that held it in place and stop working. We managed to get out of the heavy traffic and into a parking lot before the loose brake caliper locked up our wheel.

Everyone we spoke to was very kind to us in Chicago. We’d stopped not far away from a mechanic’s shop, but he didn’t specialize in Volkswagens, so he gave us the address for the shop we should go to. We called a tow truck, and the driver was very nice and helpful.

An assistant manager took care of us at the Volkswagen repair shop, and he even called a couple hotels to help us find a place that would allow us to take our dog. The repair shop had a shuttle that took us to the hotel too and picked us up when the car was fixed. That’s customer service and hospitality! Our car was fixed by the next morning, but we just parked it in the nearest parkade and stayed another night. 

We enjoyed walking and exploring the city around our hotel. We didn’t wander too far for fear of getting lost in the maze, but we found our way to Millennium Park and the trails along the harbor. Then we took the River Walk back along the Chicago River to our hotel. Seeing some of the old buildings and architecture among the newer skyscrapers was fascinating. 





We got to eat a deep dish pizza and some Chicago BBQ and burgers. We experienced the sound of the L trains in the city. There really is literally a Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts on every block. Finding the 24 hour Dunkin’ Donuts was a challenge when it got later in the evening. We had to walk by three or four of them that were closed, but we did find it. A couple popular restaurant chains are also on every city block. Within 7 or 8 blocks from our hotel, we could have eaten anything from hotdogs to Mediterranean to Greek or Asian or Middle Eastern, and a large variety of other foods. There were also grocery stores nearby, and all of these restaurants and stores were on the first level of these giant skyscrapers. I think a person could live in Chicago for a long time and always find somewhere new to eat or something new to experience. 



What could have been a very scary and frustrating experience turned out to be a wonderful, unexpected stop during our trip thanks to all of the generous people that we met. Chicago was a very large city that I actually wouldn’t mind visiting again.

-Ulfrvif