Vaughan to Chicago: the Midwest week by chauffeured car

Chicago, and the road west

Chicago is the American city Vaughan families reach without touching New York State: the 401 west past London and Chatham, the Ambassador Bridge at Windsor, then I-94 straight across Michigan's lower peninsula — Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, the lake's southern tip at Michigan City — into the Loop from the south with the skyline rising off the lake. It is the city of the architecture cruise on the river, Millennium Park's Bean and the Crown Fountain the children play in, the Art Institute's Seurat and Hopper, the Museum Campus's three museums on the lake, the Willis Tower's glass ledge, Wrigley Field's ivy and Navy Pier's wheel; and it is a food city — deep-dish at Lou Malnati's or Giordano's, the Italian beef, the hot dog with no ketchup — in a way the children remember. The Choose Chicago site has the city; the border guide has the bridge, which for this trip is the Ambassador or the tunnel at Windsor.

The route, and the split

From Woodbridge at 7 a.m.: the 407 and the 401 west, London at 9, Windsor's Ambassador Bridge at 10:45 with the CBP wait checked, I-94 west through Michigan — a stop at Ann Arbor's Zingerman's for lunch, or at the Michigan City outlets — the Indiana toll road's last stretch, and the Loop by 5:30 Central time (Chicago is an hour behind Vaughan, which the family gains on the way out and loses coming home). Just under ten hours by the estimate; ten to eleven in practice with the border, the stops and the Loop's evening traffic. A family that splits it sleeps in Detroit or Ann Arbor and has Chicago by early afternoon the next day; the travel desk holds the room.

Millennium Park and the Loop

The Bean — Cloud Gate — and the Crown Fountain's faces spitting water onto children in summer, the Pritzker Pavilion's free concerts, the Lurie Garden, and across the road the Art Institute's lions, the Impressionists, Seurat's Grande Jatte, Hopper's Nighthawks and the Thorne miniature rooms the children love; the Loop's elevated train circling above, the Chicago Theatre's sign, State Street's Macy's, the Riverwalk down the stairs. A family's first full day is the park and the museum with the Sprinter dropped at the hotel and released; the Loop is walked and ridden.

The architecture cruise, and the towers

The Chicago Architecture Center's river cruise — ninety minutes on the river's three branches with a docent naming the buildings from the Wrigley and the Tribune Tower to Marina City and the new towers — is the hour every Vaughan family says was the best; book it on the center's site for a late afternoon when the light is on the glass. The Willis Tower's Skydeck and its glass ledge, and 875 North Michigan's (the old Hancock) observation floor with the lake below, are the two heights; the family does one.

The Museum Campus, Wrigley and Navy Pier

The Field Museum's Sue the T. rex, the Shedd Aquarium's belugas and the Adler Planetarium sit together on the lake south of the Loop — one Sprinter drop, a day, and the lakefront path between them; Wrigley Field's tour and a Cubs afternoon game in the bleachers with the ivy on the wall are a Vaughan baseball family's pilgrimage; Navy Pier's Ferris wheel, the Children's Museum and the fireworks on summer Wednesdays and Saturdays are the evening; Lincoln Park Zoo is free and the Sprinter's daily-hire morning.

The food, briefly

Deep-dish pizza is a forty-minute wait at Lou Malnati's or Giordano's and the family argues Chicago against Toronto's Neapolitan on the drive home; the Italian beef at Portillo's, the Chicago dog, the Garrett popcorn mix and a Sunday brunch in Wicker Park are the rest; Vaughan's Italian families make Taylor Street's Little Italy their own afternoon.

The week, in shape

Day one the drive with a Detroit night, or the long day; day two Millennium Park and the Art Institute, the Riverwalk, deep-dish; day three the architecture cruise at four, the Skydeck, the Magnificent Mile; day four the Museum Campus on foot and Navy Pier's fireworks; day five Wrigley's tour and a Cubs game or Lincoln Park Zoo, and the drive home in one day or split at Ann Arbor. Four or five nights, the Sprinter as a return with one daily-hire day, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Ten hours at the wheel across Ontario and Michigan; the Ambassador Bridge's queue; I-94's trucks and Chicago's Kennedy Expressway in the evening, which the chauffeur has driven; the Loop's garages, which are the most expensive in the Midwest; and the flight — Chicago is ninety minutes from Pearson and a couple flies; the family of five with the bags, and the group of eight for a Cubs weekend, drive in the Sprinter for one fare.

Seasons

Summer for Navy Pier, the fountain, the Cubs and the lakefront; October for the marathon and the lake's colour; December for the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza and the Magnificent Mile's lights, with Michigan's lake-effect snow watched by the chauffeur and the Sprinter on winter tires; spring for the museums and the river dyed green on St. Patrick's Saturday. The wind off the lake in January is the reason the city's nickname is not about weather but the children believe it is.

Pairing it

Chicago pairs with Detroit and Ann Arbor as the drive's split and the Michigan stops, and a family that wants the lake does the Indiana Dunes on the way in; the Windsor post has the Canadian side of the bridge.

The drive west, in order

From Woodbridge at 6:30 in the Sprinter: the 407 and the 401 west with the sunrise behind; London at 8:30 for coffee; Chatham's flat fields; Windsor and the Ambassador Bridge's plaza at 10:15 with the CBP wait at fifteen minutes — the border guide has the booth — I-75 through Detroit's downtown with the Renaissance Center to the left, I-94 west; Ann Arbor's Zingerman's Deli at 11:45 for the sandwiches that are the trip's first legend; Kalamazoo, the Michigan City outlets at 3:15 Central time for an hour if the family wants it; the Indiana toll road, the Skyway with the skyline ahead across the lake, and the Loop's hotel at 5:45 Central. Eleven hours of clock and ten of driving, with the hour gained at the Indiana line and the children awake for the skyline.

The Loop without the vehicle

Chicago's Loop and the Near North are walked and ridden: the L's Brown Line loop above the streets, the Red Line to Wrigley's Addison stop, the water taxi on the river, the lakefront path's rented bicycles from Navy Pier to the Museum Campus. The Sprinter drops at the hotel and is released for the Loop days; it comes back for the Museum Campus and Lincoln Park Zoo morning, or the Oak Park afternoon at Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, as one daily-hire day inside the trip.

The Cubs weekend, for the group

Eight friends from Maple for a Cubs–Cardinals weekend at Wrigley: the Sprinter on Friday, a Wrigleyville or River North hotel, Saturday's day game in the bleachers with the ivy and the rooftops, Sunday's game and Murphy's Bleachers after, Monday's drive home asleep from Kalamazoo; the daily-hire fare split eight ways against eight fares to O'Hare and two airport vans, and the hourly page's logic of a vehicle released between the drops. A Bears Sunday at Soldier Field is the autumn version.

Costs, plainly

The Chicago return is one number in the booking engine, the daily hire for the week another; against them are five fares to O'Hare, the Blue Line or a transfer into the Loop, and — for the family that drove itself — the Ambassador Bridge, the Indiana toll road, the Loop's garages at the Midwest's highest rates and ten hours at the wheel each way. A couple flies; the family of five with the bags and the group of eight for Wrigley drive, and the deep-dish argument on I-94 home is included.

Oak Park and the Frank Lloyd Wright morning

Ten miles west of the Loop, Oak Park holds the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses anywhere — his own home and studio on Forest Avenue with its guided tour, the Unity Temple, and a walking tour past twenty-five Prairie houses on the streets around them — and it is the daily-hire morning for a family with an architecture teenager after the river cruise has done its work; Hemingway's birthplace is two blocks away. The Frank Lloyd Wright Trust's site has the tour times, and the Sprinter is at the studio's kerb.

The Christkindlmarket week

Chicago's German Christmas market at Daley Plaza runs from mid-November through Christmas Eve — the wooden stalls, the mulled wine in the boot-shaped mugs, the ornaments and the bratwurst — with the Magnificent Mile's lights festival and the Macy's windows on State Street the same fortnight, and a Vaughan family's December weekend is the Sprinter on Friday with the lake-effect snow watched, the market on Saturday, the Art Institute's Thorne rooms decorated for the season, and Sunday's drive home with the ornaments in the bay. Michigan's I-94 in December is the chauffeur's road, on winter tires, and the Choose Chicago events calendar has the market's dates.

The Indiana Dunes, on the way in

A summer family that leaves Vaughan at six reaches the Indiana Dunes National Park's beaches at the lake's southern tip by three Central time — an hour on the sand with the Chicago skyline faint across the water, the Sprinter in the beach lot and the towels in the bay — before the last hour into the Loop; it is the stop that makes the long day a holiday and the National Park Service's Dunes page has the beaches.

Booking it

Book from your Vaughan address as a return, a daily hire for the week or a one-way with the flight home from O'Hare and the Pearson pickup booked; tell us the split, the cruise's time, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the border, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the Ambassador Bridge's wait on it.

Book the Chicago trip