Theme...

Wandering around Chicago, I wondered what specific things I could take pictures of that i haven't already seen, such as store fronts, architecture, bridges, people, animals, flowers etc. I probably have already seen neon signs, but I thought they looked cool, so I went around taking pictures of them, although not all are neon, I liked them. Not all of them turned out either, but Oh well! Actually, finding neon wasn't as easy as we had thought. Unless lighted signs are considered neon, which I don't think they are. I wanted to get some of the bar district but my feet couldn't walk anymore. Next time I'll have an agenda.

Give away...

Chronicles of a Country Girl is having a give away weekend!! Check out her great blog and try to win one of her wonderful photos.http://chroniclesofacountrygirl.blogspot.com/

Friends at the zoo...

Lincoln Park zoo...

After eating a yummy breakfast at the Corner Bakery Cafe, we caught a bus and headed for Lincoln Park Zoo. We ended up walking quite a ways because the bus we were able to get on only went so far. We kind of forgot about it being the second day of the air show and the buses were packed solid. We walked through an old neighborhood with some really nice homes. The architecture is fabulous, we just don't have old homes like that close to our downtown. St. Paul maybe does, but not Mpls. Anyway, the zoo was very nice, but once again HOT and HUMID! Eeek!! They have quite a large ape house. They are the only animals I have a real hard time looking at for any length of time, they are just too close to humans. One of them was sitting by a wall and several people were watching him, he would look at us, then kind of put his eyes down and away, then look back, and finally he walked over to this hanging mirror in a thick frame and stood behind it. At first we thought he was looking at himself, but then we thought that he was probably telling us in his own way that he didn't want to be stared at any longer. It just feels wrong to me to stare at them. If I were a zookeeper and had direct contact with them and could converse, I think it would feel different, more like talking to a friend.
As we continued through the zoo, we noticed that a lot of the animals were either inside the buildings in their areas or in their dens, then we noticed the zookeeper signs saying that all the animals had access to their indoor areas during the air show. The wild dogs were quite interested when the planes flew over, very alert and on task. The black rhino was not pleased at all, he kept pacing around his doorway, but some zookeepers were talking to him so maybe that was calming him. The lions weren't even paying attention to all the noise, they were snoozing on the rocks.
The sky had been getting darker and darker with big clouds rolling in, and pretty soon the rain started falling. I didn't mind getting wet, but I had a cloth purse/bag that my daughter had made specifically for this trip so I could put my new camera in it and not have to carry the camera bag. I refused to keep walking the zoo until I at least had a plastic bag to put my camera in. We ran into a gift shop, along with everyone else and I was prepared to buy something largish, when right by the cash register was a basket of Lincoln Park Zoo rain ponchos. We bought 2, put them on and it stopped raining. Figures!! But, it started again, then stopped, then started, then stopped, then really started with lightening and thunder. We decided we had had enough of the zoo and the rain, so we sloshed through the puddles and waited for the bus under the shelter. When we finally got on the bus, it was once again crowded now with people going to a Beethoven concert at Millenium Park. People that were nice and clean and dry and I had to stand over them with my dripping rain poncho. Tsk, tsk.

Breakfast...

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the Corner Bakery Cafe, eventhough we got free breakfast at our hotel. Kira and I had eaten there when we were in Chicago, and I have been thinking of it ever since. I got my usual, oatmeal with dried cranberries and brown sugar. It's made with milk so it's real smooth and creamy and it comes with a slice of sweet, crunchy toast. David had the Anaheim Scrambler and we shared an orange juice. It was wonderful, just like I remember it. We sat on the patio with a bunch of other people and a bunch of pigeons. Here I was taking pictures of the birds and other people were shushing them away...go figure.

After the air show...

We opted to walk back to the hotel, eventhough we had already walked several miles that day, because there were just too many people to try and wade through and the buses would have been packed. We walked along the boardwalk and cooled off with the breeze coming off the lake. We stopped at Starbucks and got a frapacchino, got to our hotel and colapsed. Wondering what we should do the rest of the night, I was opting for getting a pizza and vegging in front of the TV, we instead got a Subway sandwich and walked to Navy Pier. We wandered around the Pier for a while, David had never been there, then saw Harry Potter at the IMAX. It was 11:45 before the movie got out, but we decided to walk back instead of taking the bus. We would never have considered walking that far at that time of night in Minneapolis, but Chicago feels safer. Maybe because it's such a tourist spot, there are more people out and about. Kira and I felt safe 3 years ago when we were there too.

51st Annual Airshow...

I wish I had a video recorder on my camera so I could include a video of the jets zipping by overhead and the booming sound they make. It is just the coolest thing in the world, for me. Flying over the city with all the tall buildings, makes the enormous sound reverberate. We got a terrific seat right at the waterfront. David wanted to sit closer to Lincoln Park, because that was the place all the close up action was taking place...the parachuters landed there, and the really tricky stunts the planes did, were right overhead there, but the beach was like a can of sardines. I really didn't want to sit in 90+ degrees with 90+ % humidity, in the hot shining sun, on the sand, with no shade, or sunscreen, we got sunburned as it was. So we ended up about 1/2 mile further south, with our feet dangling over the edge of the wall, getting splashed every now and then and although we didn't see the parachuters land, trees were in the way, we had no problem seeing the stunts the planes did.
The lifeguard boats came out each time there was a jump, just in case the landing didn't go as planned. I know there have been accidents during air shows in the past, and I was thinking of that while I was totally in awe, but we were talking about "what if?" I just don't know what I would do or how I would react, other than the obvious horror, if there was a crash.
Pictures just don't do an air show justice...there's NO sound!
When we arrived friday afternoon, the planes were practicing over the city. Each time one went overhead, all the people out on the streets just stopped walking and looked up with big smiles on their faces.

Saturday...

OMG, it was HOT and HUMID!!! YUK!!!!!!!!!!!

The 51st annual Air and Water Show in Chicago this weekend, which was the main reason we went this particular weekend because I love the jets!! The show wasn't supposed to start until 11:30 and I didn't just want to sit there in the hot sun getting burned to a crisp so we could get a good seat to see something that is up in the air anyway, so we walked around Millenium Park and saw the sites there.

Blues...

We had tickets to see Albert Cummings at "House of Blues" on their back porch on friday evening. Walking in the front door, there is a huge old looking porch right in front of you, a box office behind you to the right and entrance to the main stage to your right. It's very creole looking, multiple pictures and drawings on the walls, layers upon layers of paint on the railings, bartops, walls and posts. Bottle caps are used as trim. the ceiling is vaulted accoustic tiles, carved with busts of legendary blues singers and when the action really gets going upstairs,(or maybe it's insinc with the bass) the ceiling moves, pulsating with the beat. It really gets going so much that the entire room vibrates and you think the ceiling is going to fall down upon you. Looking at the structure though, you can see that the pillars and beams are stationary and it's just the ceiling that is pulsating. Very strange!
The concert was pretty good, but Albert's attitude left a little to be disired. I guess we weren't enthusiastic and loud enough for his taste as he kept making comments that we hadn't had enough to drink or we weren't liking his music. Ah well, egos...
House of Blues was definately a good place to people watch, I thought Minneapolis/Uptown area was the biggest GLBT area west of NewYork, but apparently Chicago is right up there and I think most of them were there with us at House of Blues.

Hunger...

As I said, we were starving, sweating, hot, tired, and cranky, and as we passed by the Hard Rock Cafe 2 blocks from our hotel, I just about left our luggageon the sidewalk and went in. We did manage to wait till we got settled though. Our waiter was extremely friendly and as we were talking, we found out he was raised in Chicago, moved to Walker MN, a very small town in northern MN, then went to Brown College in Eden Prairie, MN for broadcasting before decided that broadcasting wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his life, so he moved back to Chicago, is working as a server at Hard Rock Cafe and going to school to get his teaching degree. Small world! Teaching will be a great career for him, because he's a real "people person". We've been to the Hard Rock Cafe in London and San Francisco, so it was a given that we should eat at one in Chicago. Funny...we have not eaten at the one in MOA in MN, I think maybe we'll have to remedy that.