Drive to Chicago from St Louis during January — A memorable expedition
Travelling during winter in Chicago is better to avoid. Yes, we all know that but there is always an excitement, a thrill in trying something forbidden, specially driving on a winter evening, ignoring the forecast of severe sleet on the road. This is a story of me and my wife venturing a thrill ride in Jan 2011 from St. Louis to Chicago on an unforgettable weekend. Let’s get into it.
Back in 2012, I was working as a Tech Lead for a financial firm in India and was deployed for a 7 month assignment in St. Louis, MO. My wife accompanied me the last 2 months of my stay which was accidentally Jan and Feb and that left us with little choice to travel around US. We had some vacation planned in Feb but being a travel lover, could not resist myself not to show her at least one tier 1 big city and Chicago being near to St. Louis, that became an easy choice.
After cancelling some trips for couple of weekends due to some or other things, finally we decided Jan end weekend for Chicago and made ourselves mentally and luggagelly ready for that. Suddenly things started changing 3–4 days back with severe weather forecast for the Friday evening, the time we were supposed to travel the city of winds but we were determined not to cancel the trip this time. So, we started at 4 PM from St. Louis as planned.
We drove for 2 hours without any issue though, weather was gloomy but road was fine. We took a short break and was making fun of weather prediction. Never imagined that weather would make so much fun of us in a while. We drove 10–15 more mins when I started feeling a discomfort in steering wheel, I realized the wheel is not listening to steering properly, suddenly I saw a car overtook ours like snake is crawling in the road
Eventually all cars started slowing down, so as ours. Is this what were forecasted? Within next 5 mins the road became almost non drivable, the car was literally moving like a plastic toy boat on water surface. I almost lost all control over the car. I have never experienced sleet before and I prayed, that first time to be the last time. Within another 5–10 mins, the traffic became standstill which was a short term relief given the driving condition however realized the flip side of it after a while.
About 30/40 mins after remaining this standstill state, my bladder started indicating the outcome of the large size coke I consumed during the break. After holding for 15 mins, it started becoming un-bearable and as per my prediction the car was not supposed to move for another hour or so which was definitely beyond my endurance. I had to get out of the car and I did.. but O my… I was not able to move an inch on the road it was so slippery. My effort went on vein and I had to get back to the car. But my bladder was unaware of
the weather condition outside and continuously nagging me. I always heard Necessity in the mother of invention and got a hands on that day.
A water bottle not only helps you fill your thirst but also helps you to recycle the same water that you consumed earlier. Oh man, what a relief it was.
Anyways, after 2 hours of waiting finally the traffic started moving however the road condition was same, almost impossible to drive. We decided to take an exit and have our dinner done and decide after that whether to go Chicago or return back to St Louis. Somehow we managed to park our car to a McDonalds.
During dinner we decided, come what may, we will go to Chicago however it was still showing almost 3 hours and with the road condition, it may be more so we decided to take a break in between and reserved a hotel in an hour distance from where we were and I am glad that we took the decision as post dinner (almost 10:30 PM) the road condition became tad better as emergency service workers started pouring salts on the road. We reached the hotel around midnight.
Next day morning, the weather was much better, it was cloudy but no snow or rain. The 2 hours leftover journey to Chicago was a pleasant ones with our favorite songs were being played in car, we reached the city around 12:30 PM, the city I always love to go.
We parked our car at our hotel at downtown and started roaming around Michigan avenue. Few snaps below to visually tell the situation of the city.
First we went to John Hancock and had our lunch at 95th fl restaurant. The view of the city from both the sides were awesome. We walked the city including Chicago bean, Riverside rest of the day and night before taking rest at the hotel.
We booked hotel Marriott besides mag mile. It was a decent hotel at decent rate. In case you are new to Chicago, below are the must visit places to cover over weekends -
- Walk along Michigan Avenue from John Hancock through Art Museum to get a feel of the city and take selfies
- Chicago Bean and Millennium Park for excellent city view
- Navi Pier & Surroundings
- Shedd Aquarium Area (Difficult in Winter)
- River Walk and River Boat Ride (Boat ride is closed in Winter)
- Frolicking around the city, try for some great restaurants
Time to say good by to the windy, cloudy, beautiful city. The Risk of venturing on an adverse weather day was worth but I won’t recommend this adventure if you have options however in case you have to, don’t forget to take all wheel drive car and carry Water bottle :)
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Till next time, cheers!!
