A Day on the Free Metra
It’s winter in Chicago - a miserable time for most people, myself included. For some reason, Metra, the regional train operation, decided to make their tickets free for a weekend in February, to encourage weekend ridership. I saw this as a sign that I needed to explore a new locale and see if there was anything worth checking out in the suburbs of Chicago. The limited amount of suburbs I had been to hadn’t really been anything to shout about.
Since it was free, I decided to choose a line and take it all the way to the end. I settled on Aurora, IL, mostly because it’s situated on a river and it has a casino there. I grabbed some cash and headed downtown to Union station. The train line was the BNSF line, which I remembered from playing Monopoly as a kid!
My first stop off of the train was “Two Brothers Roundhouse,” a restaurant and brewery that used to be an old train station. I had a delicious milk stout and a reuben sandwich.
I then walked towards town and to the Fox River, which had the casino on a little island in the river. I tried to take some photos but didn’t realize that snow had fallen onto my lens. I spent approximately 15 minutes in the casino and lost $60 at blackjack. Hollywood casino was nothing special…
After the casino I walked down the block to a little café so I could work on some stuff before heading towards the return train. The trains came every 2 hours, so I had a very limited window. I had originally planned on staying in Aurora at this little coffee shop for a while so I could finish a lot of work, but I quickly became bored and the consistent falling snow really made me want to be back home.
I raced towards the train and an hour later I was back in downtown Chicago. I took the opportunity to take some pictures, as the lighting was optimal and snow was still falling.
Sears tower
In summary, the free Metra didn’t really sell me on any more Chicago suburbs. Perhaps I’m missing something, and I’m willing to have my mind changed, but most Chicago suburbs are pretty bland. At least I got some cool pictures out of the trip!
