Goose Island

Today I drove from my home eastward on Irving Park Road, which swings south of O’Hare International Airport and then into the city of Chicago. I kept going, though the densely populated urban streets, eventually heading southeast on Milwaukee Ave., one of the city’s wheel-spoke streets. Most of Chicago’s streets are part of a grid: 19th-century contrivances. Not ones like Milwaukee. They follow the Indian traces that used to radiate from the meeting of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Something's satisfying about following those ancient roads, even in a completely modern way.

My destination: an island formed by two channels of the North Branch of the Chicago River. It's known as Goose Island. Islands can be many things: tropical, wooded, rocky, volcanic, offshore, artificial. Goose Island, Chicago, is industrial. Fitting.

I was going to see a famous company’s new R&D facility there, so I can write about it. After I’m done writing about it professionally, I will write about it here. But it’s enough to say that today I visited one of the most important places on Earth in a very narrow sense: the future of confections.

Best of all, at the end of the tour, I got free samples. A weighty bag of them, which I plan to hide from Lilly and dole out as needed.