IMTS Chicago

After 3 years of not going to Chicago for work, I've had two trips in the past two months! This time, instead of being out at the very end of the orange "L" line, I was staying in downtown Chicago on the Magnificent Mile. We were just a block of Michigan Avenue, which is lined with department stores, gourmet food, and high-class boutiques. We were also a 15 minute walk from the famous Navy Pier, which juts into Lake Michigan and gives an amazing view back over the city skyline. 

My reason for this trip was working at IMTS, the International Manufacturing Technology Show. When I showed up on Sunday our booth was nearly set up and the show still a day away, which left an afternoon for exploring. I decided to walk down to Navy Pier, since I didn't see that sight my last time in town. Lake Michigan is somewhere between a glacial and tropical teal, bright against the rust and brick reds of downtown Chicago. The pier is at the top of of an easy bend in the lake, extending the view from the power plants in Indiana to the posh neighborhoods north of downtown. 

During the week, my job was to staff our booth at IMTS. Evidently, there were 120,000+ people in Chicago just for the big event! We commuted daily along the lake shore from the Magnificent Mile under the Ghery-designed BP Pedestrian Bridge, past Buckingham Fountain, around the Field Museum to the shadow of Soldier Field (da Bears!). That is basically the list of things I want to see/do/visit next time I'm in Chicago, because I spent most of my time in the hangar-like volume of McCormick Place.

Every one of the companies there had their biggest and best. In the few breaks I had to walk the floor, I saw maybe 1/4 of the entire show. There were separate sections for metal cutting, quality, additive manufacturing, robotics/automation... it was HUGE! There was a robot twirling a truck frame, a cool milling machine head that operated on 4 Z-axis linear bearings, giving it crazy eccentric motion, and lots of company swag, and even some bars (both espresso and beer).

At the end of the day, we dragged our sore feet onto the bus and back to Michigan Ave. Most split into small groups for dinner. I foraged for comfort food nightly, which one evening I found with old friends at a brewpub. After dinner I wandered busy sidewalks back across the river, secure in navigating streets laid out on a grid on cardinal points, interrupted by the river. Everything sparkled and rustled and hummed, until suddenly we woke up in the morning and the world was quiet and concrete and subdued.