With on-time arrival in Chicago, I arrange to store my bags in the 1st class lounge there while I bundle up to go out during the few hours before my connection to the Southwest Chief for California. Again, I manage to forget to bring the camera. But maybe it is just as well because it is almost too cold to shed gloves to press a shutter, anyway.

A noteworthy sign: Watch for Falling Ice. Amended by one jokester to: Watch for Falling Mice. I walk through Millennium Park, which hadn’t been finished when Kenneth and I last visited Chicago, carefully avoiding the clear, cold blast of wind coming from Lake Michigan and across Grant Park. (I can’t remember the year but on our last visit we visited friends and the new Symphony Hall on the occasion of the last time that Rostropovich conducted the Britten War Requiem.) From reading about Millennium, I had expected the park buildings and public art work to be massive in scale but find them pleasantly human while still impressive. The Gehry Auditorium is genuinely thrilling and the landscaping, even with snow cover, knits all of the sculptures together while it also acts as a winter shelterbelt. I also get by the venerable Palmer House to see its spectacular renovation and, of course, to the Art Institute to see two Arts and Crafts exhibitions and the special Caravaggio Supper at Emmaus on loan from the National Gallery of London. The Art Institute café offers a hot curried soup that is perfect for the day.

Finally, it is time to board and make the 43 hours trip on to Los Angeles. Our conductor is a woman and the train proves to be particularly well run. Of course.