A Rainy Weekend in Chicago: Deep Dish, the River Cruise, and Wet Pavement

Landing in a downpour

The forecast had said rain all weekend, and it delivered. Grey skies, steady drizzle, the Michigan Avenue bridge slick and shining by mid-morning. I could have let it shrink the trip down to museums and coffee shops, but instead I zipped up a pink raincoat, grabbed an umbrella, and decided the rain was just part of the itinerary. Standing at the crosswalk near the Tribune Tower with the skyline disappearing into low cloud turned out to be one of my favorite photos of the whole weekend.

Eating our way through downtown

Chicago doesn't let you leave hungry, and we made a project out of it: a deep dish pizza with the cheese pulled up in ropes before the first slice even landed on the plate, a Chicago-style hot dog — dragged through the garden, absolutely no ketchup — from a stand with a line out the door, and an Italian beef sandwich eaten standing up because sitting down felt like it would slow us down. We closed one night out at a rooftop spot where the rain had finally let up just enough to watch the skyline light up block by block.

Riding the river: the architecture cruise

The highlight of the whole trip was the architecture river cruise — boarding a covered boat right along the Chicago River and letting a guide narrate the skyline as we passed underneath it. Marina City's corncob towers, the mirrored curve of 333 Wacker, the Willis Tower rising up at the end of the river — all of it hits differently from the water than it does from the sidewalk. Even in the rain, the boat stayed dry and warm, and the low clouds actually made the skyscrapers look taller, disappearing somewhere up past the tops of the buildings.

Everything else worth mentioning

• Getting distorted, funhouse-mirror reflections of ourselves in Cloud Gate — better known as The Bean — at Millennium Park.
• A slow, damp walk along the Riverwalk, mostly empty because of the weather, which somehow made it better.
• The lions out front of the Art Institute, both wearing little rain-slicked coats of their own by the time we got there.
• An unplanned detour into a Michigan Avenue bookstore that turned into an hour we hadn't budgeted for.

Would I go back in the rain again?

Without hesitation. The rain made the whole city feel more cinematic — wet pavement holding the reflections of every building twice over, fewer crowds at the places that are usually packed, an excuse to duck into one more restaurant than we'd planned. Chicago in the sunshine is on the list for next time, but this trip made a strong case that a little bad weather is no reason to stay in.