These last two sorties out to Kansas City and to Chicago have been solo. They are cities, and cities are not always safe after dark.
Kansas City was easy. I had only one night where I had any business being out of my hotel, and my niece and her husband were kind enough to shuttle me there and back.
Chicago, however, has seen an uptick in crime even in the well-lit tourist area of the Loop. I’ve never stayed anywhere else, because Gary only feels safe on Michigan Ave. One block west to see the famous Chicago Theater sign? Flat No.
Travelocity assured me that the area around my hotel in Streeterville (per the map) or in the Magnificent Mile (per the travel sites) would be safe.
First night I was there I had to be out on the streets in the Loop to watch Operation Mincemeat. I didn’t feel great about it, but I did it. I had to walk half a block in the dark, but it was a busy block.
I had no idea that while I was in my hotel, fixing my hair to go to the theater, two blocks away someone was mugged and shot in a parking garage at 6:30 p.m..
Did I know this? Nope. Neither did I know this the next afternoon when the hotel advised me the shortest route to the closest Walgreens was through the parking garage.
A few days later when two people had mentioned “That shooting in Streeterville” I decided the reason they kept mentioning it was because it was a rare occurrence.
That calmed me down enough that I still lounged in bed a few nights later while some horn-honking-metal-scraping drama happened on the nearest corner. But when the bang-bang-bang started, I thought I should get up and look. All I saw was a car at a diagonal across the street, another car racing away, and almost immediately an ambulance arrived and loaded someone up. I checked the news more than once the next day and nothing matched up.
I have to confess, I cancelled the evening cruise on the Lake I had scheduled for the next night. And I was a little apprehensive going out to dinner the last night, but I wasn’t on any street longer than it took to scale my way into whatever SUV behemoth Uber saw fit to send me. And at least this Uber driver didn’t say, “Oh that shooting in Streeterville happened just two blocks away from your hotel.”
That’s the price you pay for a big city, though.