Chicago - Birthday time!

Sunday 25 June 2023

Today was exciting as it was my birthday.  I had bought some cards with me so opened 5 over breakfast, plus a book from JC.

We headed for Logan Square to see what their art festival was like.  It was closed - we were too early!  However we fortuitously also bumped into their Sunday farmer's market which had the most enormous queues I've even seen for a vegetable stall.  They certainly like their greens in Chicago ;-)

We headed downtown by which time I was starving, think I'd only had a coffee so far, so popped into a supermarket and grabbed a salad.  So not the poshest birthday lunch ever and JC was very amused by the non-vegetarian image behind me.

We explored the Warbash Arts Corridor, contending with the strong gusts of winds that were blowing (it's not called the Windy City for no reason).  The street art was wonderful.

We stood and watched the trains come around the loop.

Time for a birthday treat - a rooftop bar.  We went to Cindy's Rooftop and enjoyed a drink overlooking the Millennium Park and lake.

We then headed back to Logan Square to visit the festival again which was now open.  The music was stupidly loud - you know, so loud you can't hear the tune - but the stalls were nice to wander around and we played dodge the thunder showers. Birthday supper was at Lula Cafe.  They had printed me off a special menu and at one stage a birthday candle appeared with my wine which made me laugh.

Happy birthday me.

Chicago - Row, row, row your boat

Saturday 24 June 2023

Today we paddled on the Chicago River.  It was my birthday treat which had been booked for the Sunday but the weather and wind forecast looked shabby, so Kayak Chicago let us swap to the Saturday.  We hired a tandem and had the most awesome time paddling down the canal and then onto the main Chicago River.  

I just love being on the water low down, smelling and tasting the water (although I try not to swallow this stuff) and watching the birds and water insects flutter past.  On the main river we had to play dodge the tourist ship at times which made it even more fun ;-)

We walked back through part of the industrial area of Goose Island with its bridge going nowhere.  I do love the fact, though, that someone has erected the signs stating "Caution active rail, yield to trains".  Also, because I can't resist photographing these, is a benchmark on a wall - all the others I'd seen had been in the pavement - but this one was just for levelling.

Anyway, back to the holiday stuff.  We started a self-guided tour of downtown Chicago to see how many of the architectural sites we could see.  The main hall of the Central Station was shut for a private function, but we enjoyed crossing the river (again, again) and seeing the reflections on the skyscrapers.  The one on the right, below, is my favourite as it has a map of the Chicago waterways on the side facing the river including a little red blob where the building is - how cool is that?

We came around a corner to see a wedding party standing in the middle of the road with the impressive Chicago Board of Trade building as a backdrop.  I just can't imagine a wedding party standing in the middle of any UK roads and not getting honked and beeped off the road by an aggressive road user.  I'm not going to try it anyway.

We then (drum roll please) bumped into the vertical datum point of Chicago!  Even JC was excited to see it, but I think it was vicarious excitement as I was a very happy Ruth.  It is 17.64 feet below the corner sprayed orange.  

Even the Picasso sculpture afterwards couldn't beat that - but it's quite funky and, strangely, has no name as Picasso never gave it one.

The architecture is really wonderful in this area.  I loved the iron work on this shop, the Sullivan Centre, built at the end of the 19th Century.  Another beautiful building, the Carbide and Carbon building, is a wonderful example of Art Deco architecture.  It is clad in black granite, green and gold terracotta, with gold leaf and bronze trim, and some suggest it was designed to look like a champagne bottle, although not from this angle.

Another turn of the 19th Century building is the Marquette building.  Our guidebook encouraged us to stick our nose inside and the concierge kindly let us in for a peep.  The lobby has wonderful Tiffany mosaics.

The Chicago Theatre is beautifully snazzy, and the glitzy frontage on the right actually hosts a Starbucks.

We decided that it wasn't a proper trip to Chicago unless we'd had a pizza.  We got lucky as Pizzeria Due, a famous Chicago eatery, had a table for two outside.  JC had a 'proper' deep pan pizza and I was happy with a gluten free one.

The evening wasn't over yet.  We went back down to the river for night photography.

And enjoyed a night light show, Art on the Mart, projected onto a riverside building.  It is allegedly the largest permanent projected art work in the world.  Certainly a lot of fun to watch!

Chicago - We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.

Friday 23 June 2023

Today we explored Lincoln Park, starting with a superb brunch at the delightful Bourgeois Pig cafe.  Lincoln Park is a large green space just north of Chicago, and we'd set a day aside to explore it with its zoo, botanical conservatory and lakeside location.  We started with the zoo (as it was closing early for a private event) - it was free and there were penguins - what's not to love?

We headed for the African zone, which I have an affinity with, having seen a lot of these animals in the semi-wild.  

But it didn't take long before I wasn't sure if this was the right place to be seeing them.  I've seen rhinos in a safari park in Namibia, and then there was a side event of an elephant clan charging another, and suddenly it didn't seem right for this rhino to be pottering around inside a small enclosure in Chicago.  My unease heightened when we saw the polar bears.  Polar bears in this heat?!

I accept that I am blessed that I've been able to travel, and I've seen a lot of animals, such as my dearest, smelly and squawky penguins in their natural environment.  I also understand that it's important to educate those who don't have that opportunity - although with the internet I argue that having to see a polar bear in the flesh isn't necessary when you can see amazing footage of them online. Surely this is better than them chasing a plastic cube full of carrots and fish in a zoo with a small pond to swim in?  I do understand that some species are rare and that zoos can help protect those.  But it increasingly feels wrong that zoos have animals that aren't under threat in their pad.  Is it because they don't get funded if they have x number of animals including the weird geckos no-one has heard of?  Not my field...  

Anyway, I'm always happy to see a penguin - these are South African ones.  I get that they're not in their natural environment by any means (I've seen penguins in their natural environment in the Falklands, South Georgia and Cape Town), but they didn't seem stressed and the water hose would have cooled them.

We walked through the aviary and spotted cranes, Hadada ibis and Nicobar pigeon.

And the meerkats are always fun to watch.

We left the zoo and headed for the Conservatory.  It was full of leafy indulgence as I'd imagined, including a lovely fern area which puts the damp corner in our back yard, with its 3 pots of ferns, to shame!

The orchids were beautiful.

And I liked the shrimp plants, because they looked exactly like their label.  As did the sausage plants.

Outside in the park there were wedding parties having photos against the Chicago backdrop.  You can see why.

Once we'd sated ourselves with plants we headed for the lake, and stumbled across this wonderful Victorian lily pond (Alfred Caldwell lily pond).  It was such a beautiful and serene spot.  We could hear frogs croaking - from my Attenborough training it sounded like a bull frog making his presence known - but we couldn't see them. We did however stumble across a wedding (not literally) - such a tranquil setting.

We had a drink by the lakeside then had a wonderful tapas supper in Ba Ba Reeba. When we arrived they asked us if we knew what Spanish tapas were - I forget that Barcelona/Seville/Cordoba etc is a long way from Chicago and for us Europeans, "popping over to Spain" isn't a major trip as it would be from the USA.  

We had had an early supper however the night was but young so we headed down to Navy Pier.  The views back  to downtown Chicago were, once again, lovely.