Last night, when we embarked...

...on the seventh leg of the Marathon course a thought entered my head that often does at the beginning of each weekly Hike: there won't be much of interest to see tonight. And, as always, I was wrong.

We began the evening where we left off last week, at the corner of Adams and Racine, just after Mile 13. (I didn't realize Adams is a part of "Historic Route 66.") We walked west and immediately passed that gorgeous mural on the side of Skinner West Elementary School. (Apparently, there's a Skinner North; I didn't know that.) Now I could start a real battle royale here by asking whether Skinner or Ogden on the Gold Coast is the better (best?) public elementary school in the city, but there's not enough popcorn for that show. Suffice it to say that Skinner has a very good reputation. Full stop.

(I remember back in the '80s when Ogden was a little yellow-brick structure that served the families that served the wealthy on the Gold Coast who sent their kids to Latin and Parker. Now, it's been replaced by a red-brick Latin School-lookalike that serves the nouveau riche (pardon my French!) on the Near North Side -- if they can get their precious offspring accepted. How times have changed.)

Walking farther west, we passed Skinner Park to the north and Whitney Young High School to the south. (Again, I could start a pretty good fight by talking about Young's reputation in the city. I won't.)

Whitney Young, the alma mater not only of Michelle Obama but also our very own Zechary Stigger, opened in 1975 as the city's first public magnet high school. I noticed on a sign that it's the "Home of the Dolphins," which I remarked was an unusual nickname for a school at least a thousand miles away from any dolphins. "I guess by 1975 all the good nicknames were taken," I opined aloud. Zechary corrected me, however, and said that it was no mistake that a magnet school would identify with one of the animal kingdom's most intelligent creatures. Well, as comedian Steve Martin used to say back in 1975, "Excuse me!"

After Whitney Young we cheated for the first and only time (I promise!) and turned off Adams onto Laflin and up to the Billy Goat Tavern on Madison for dinner. (A guy's gotta eat, doesn't he?) While this location at the corner of Ogden Avenue is relatively new, it's actually closer to the original Billy Goat at 1855 W. Madison Street, where the United Center now stands. (Did you think the one on lower Michigan Avenue was the first? Au contraire; the original, which opened its doors in 1934, moved there in 1964.)

We were in luck; even though there was a Bulls game last night we got there early enough to beat the rush. After dining on double cheezborgers and fries, the ten of us ventured back into the chilly Chicago evening. It was time to get back on track so we walked down Ogden and rejoined Adams and the Marathon course. It made me wonder, though: why doesn't the city take the runners down Madison, which I think is a more vibrant street, and then turn around the United Center and back on Adams or Jackson? Oh, well, no one asked me.

From Adams you could see the UC, better than I expected, and we turned left (south) on Damen and then left (east) on Van Buren to return back toward the Lake. We passed the rebuilt Malcolm X. College and the Blackhawks' new practice facility (which I hadn't seen and isn't even on my Googlemaps). To the right (south) you could see both the old Cook County Hospital and Rush Medical Center across the Eisenhower Expressway, and, straight ahead, downtown. (If you'll recall, the TV show ER was supposedly set at "County," and I used to get a kick out of watching the doctors step outside for a cigarette break -- on Wacker Drive!)

We turned off Van Buren quickly, onto Ogden again briefly, before turning right (east) onto Jackson and into the Jackson Boulevard Historic District. It's only about two square blocks but the homes, dating back to the late nineteenth century, give you some idea of what the entire area must have originally looked like. Such a shame to lose so much beautiful architecture!

Walking past Whitney Young again, we came to Racine where most of the group peeled off for home. The remainder of us ("And then there were three," remarked my son, John) continued on through the West Loop to Halsted, where we turned right (south) into Greektown. (I couldn't resist taking that shot of the Sears Tower, above. What a sight for the marathoners.)

Crossing over the Eisenhower, we entered the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, which opened in 1965 as the University of Illinois at Congress Circle, or simply, "Circle." (I'm glad they renamed it; I'd hate to have to tell someone I went to a school named after a shape.) We walked past University Hall, above, a Brutalist structure which is actually the tallest building on the West Side. After waving at Tufano's Vernon Park Tap we split up at Racine. We had now completed 17 miles of the Marathon course and will resume our Hike next week to about Mile 20, where runners usually "hit a wall." There will be no wall for us, though, as we are determined to make it all the way to Grant Park in the next few weeks. After that, who knows?