After RedHot Ranch, we pretty much resumed walking NW on Milwaukee.   This led us by a rather huge number of food places, mostly of the interesting mix of of Polish and Mexican places side by side; there were a lot of taquerias right next to Polish butchers.  But we didn’t stop much on this stretch, primarily since Polish butcher shops are generally in the business of selling raw product and not ready-to-consume stuff.  I’ve got about 20 places on this stretch that I want to check out on another trip, hopefully when I’ve got access to a kitchen (and a cooler to take stuff home).
But we also saw a lot of cool non-food stuff.  Including fleabag hotels:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7215175898
Cool murals:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216481562
Bizarre art installations:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7215196714
Polish insurance brokers next to Taquerias:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216484694
Tri-lingual (English, Spanish, Polish) signage:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216509988
Cool theaters:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216477952
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216497020
And possibly the US’s most architecturally elaborate public high school:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216487010 .
We eventually made it to Jefferson Park before turning east on Foster (a bit short of the original planned Devon route).  My only regret is not knowing that there was a nice Polish Constitution Day celebration going on, if I had known that, I might have somehow adjusted the route to allow me to indulge in some Polish food.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/7216515108

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=33471 http://www.lthforum.com/b…c.php?f=18&t=33471

 
Indeed. I planned the Manhattan and San Francisco Death Marches (I’m very familiar with both of those cities due to frequent visits), but I handed off organization of this one to Kevin since he lives in Chicago (well, did, he’s moving to Syracuse for Grad School).
You can see our original route skipped downtown, and also went further north, but we made several last minute adjustments (we skipped Khan BBQ because the night before the March we did Sun Wah BBQ, which is somewhat similar, and several of us wanted to check out Great Lake Pizza.  More on those joints later…).  I’d like to do a variant route sometime that gets us up to Devon, but as it was, around mile 20 we were starting to some talks of revolution… (“Hey, that Route 62 bus goes right to our destination!”).
 
(I forgot about the LTHForum thread, if Kevin doesn’t post stuff over there, I might repost most of this there as well).  There’s a lot of decent discussion at TivoCommunity.com as well, but you need to have a (free) account to access that forum.

For those that might be interested, it looks like the 2013 Death March will be Boston.  Nominations for food joints welcome… 🙂

Did you happen to try any of the fried shrimp from Red Hot Ranch?  It is some of the finest I have ever had outside of South Carolina and Florida.

 
I was tempted, but I’ve got a mild seafood allergy that I didn’t want to risk dealing with ~10 miles left of walking.  I’ll note it for another visit

Shortly after we did the pie, we hit the approximate halfway mark on our route, and it was time to celebrate, so we stopped for a beer at the well-respected Map Room tavern:
 
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It’s got a rather nice interior (and you can’t see it in these shots, but most of the walls  and some of the ceilings are maps, and the tables are international currency):
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Here’s the rest of the walking crowd:
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I’ll mention here that we repeated a mistake from the Manhattan Death March.  While a halfway beer is refreshing and enjoyable, it also means that the next several miles of walking will also likely involve lots of searching for restrooms…. and Chicago has noticeably fewer public restroom facilities, especially on Milwaukee Ave.  This resulted in unplanned stops at Taco Bell and McDonalds for token purchases to use restrooms…
 
After that, it was time for another Chicago treat, Chicago Dogs!   We got ours from Redhot Ranch on Western Ave:
 
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Each of us got a dog and fries.  The dog was, IMHO, only slightly better than the average Chicago dog, but the fries were well above average: hand cut, nicely crisped, and flavorful.  Probably the only fries served with a Chicago dog I’ve liked better were at Hot Doug’s (not visited on this trip, since the schedule of a Death March doesn’t lend itself to waiting in line)
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Death Marcher Kevin (who lives in Chicago) gave us a demo of the proper hunched-over posture for eating a Chicago Dog (he gave us a similar demo back at Al’s):
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What a GREAT Idea!…and a great write-up and photos.  How does one get notified of future events and be allowed to join in?

The event is an offshoot of another online community I’m involved with (TivoCommunity.com), but I’m more than glad to post details here once we get the next march planned (indeed, we suffered from low numbers this year…)

A repeat of Manhattan some Fall is a possibility, especially focusing on the Upper East Side instead of the Upper West Side.