Sears Tower

I'd arranged to meet a high school classmate for lunch, with the increasing delays communicated through voicemail tag as the train entered and left reception. A New Jerseyite living in Chicago, the rail hub of the nation (see Amtrak route network), he unlike most people doesn't bat an eye at hearing that I was coming through by train. "The trains are delayed but usually not this badly," he notes, "whereas O'Hare is moderately bad most of the time." After lunch, there remain ninety minutes before my train, so we take an hour for a rapid tour of the main sights of downtown.

Here's the obligatory shot of the Sears Tower. Perhaps the Boeing building would have been a more fittingly ironic skyscraper to photograph, considering my destination of Seattle. But I didn't have time to get close to it.