City Map - Chicago

This week I spent time at the Wisconsin Dells with my grandchildren and their parents. Part of us traveled east from Minneapolis, the other group headed west from northern Indiana which meant braving Chicago traffic. The trick to making reasonable time through the Windy City rests with avoiding rush hour both coming and going.

Their trip out proved successful, the drive back turned into a different story. A four and a half hour journey expanded to six and a half hours. Even with GPS advising them on the fastest route they did no better than my well worn map used for years before Siri had a voice.



City Map - Chicago


Riding shotgun or in my glove box,
useless. Your streets show no
escape routes during rush hour

but force me into the flow
of your car-clogged arteries.
Bumper to bumper

from the Edens
east to the Indiana Skyway,
squeezed between eighteen-wheelers

and cell phone screamers
all caught in a slow moving
tango of vehicles.

From you I learned: NPR
repeats itself every two hours,
Fast Pass stickers become oxymorons

and flipping through iTunes may result
in missing a crucial exit.
Still, I scan your fan-folded pages

searching for a time warp portal,
a gun-your-engines run
on a thruway to elsewhere.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor