Chicago — Inside and out

CHICAGO — This fall, as in the two previous falls, I found myself in Chicago. The days were sunny and the sky was brilliant and streaked with clouds. My husband and I walked through the parks and along the river and out to the lake shore, and I exclaimed about the clean city and the perfect weather.

My daughter, who lives here, said, "You haven't been here in the winter. Or in the summer."

Well. Yes. But even if it were icy or muggy, it would still be a fabulous city for tourists. There's enough to do indoors.

Who wouldn't enjoy a day at the Art Institute of Chicago, wandering among the Impressionists? Or a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry to watch the chicks hatch? If you haven't seen the play "Wicked," there's no theater more wildly ornate and interesting than the Oriental Theatre. You can spend intermission pondering how all those gewgaws get dusted.

Then, too, one of the best things to do indoors in Chicago is to eat. Delicious Italian is the easiest to find. But great steak is easy, too. So is great Chinese.

On this visit we tried to work our way back to a tasty Mexican dinner we had two years ago, so we asked around for a Mexican restaurant that begins with the letter Z and ended up at Zocalo (358 W. Ontario; 312-302-9977). We didn't recognize the place. But as soon as we fell into the food, we ceased to wonder where we were.

The mole was dark and tart and the chili relleno came in a puff pastry. Later, we learned the place we'd enjoyed before was Zapatista, 1307 S. Wabash. We think we remembered eating outside when we were there before, on a warm fall evening. We vow to go back, to both restaurants that start with Z.

Over the last three autumns, we've found a number of sites that bear revisiting. We've been twice to the home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park. And we've been three times on a boat tour; twice on the Chicago River and once on the tour that starts on the river and then goes into Lake Michigan.

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It took me only three times on a Chicago Architecture Foundation cruise before I understood how city planners reversed the flow of the Chicago River.