It has never been clear to me how retired people can take a ‘vacation’. Nevertheless, we chose to celebrate an important anniversary with a short vacation. We took a vacation in Chicago! Well, it was our favorite vacation spot before we moved here, so why not?
A short ride on the 147 bus got us downtown, where we stayed at a nice Michigan Avenue hotel.
We visited Cloud Gate:
Me at the Bean with all the other tourists.
We enjoyed Maggie Daley Park.
Maggie Daley Park
Me enjoying the play of light through the shimmering leaves in the “Enchanted Forest”
We listened to the orchestra practicing in the band shell:
We attended a concert at the lovely St James Cathedral
And we strolled down Michigan Avenue.
Me stopping in front of the Harry Potter store.
We had pizza at Pizano’s.
In the morning, we had breakfast outside at the base of the still impressive old Prudential Building.
The Art Institute of Chicago is displaying some of the treasures of sculpture from the Torlonia collection. Included is this mid-first century BCE bust of a young woman.
This woman could have heard the news of Julius Caesar’s assassination. She could have heard that Marc Antony gave a stirring speech at the funeral, and might even have seen first hand the riots and, eventually, civil war.
13 December is Saint Lucy’s Day, and we joined the Santa Lucia procession through the neighborhood.
Sponsored by our local Swedish American Museum, this event features a group of young girls leading the procession while singing carols. One of them is honored to wear the wreath of candles on her head (barely visible in the photo above). Candles are lit, and a song is sung about the return of light and longer days; it seems that 13 December was the shortest day of the year in Sweden under the old Julian calendar.
It was a festive occasion, with over a hundred people joining in the walk, although it was pretty dang cold.
Actually, the Chicago Underground Tour (with Rats). This is an interesting, entertaining, and informative tour of some below street level areas downtown. CVH, who does not care for rats, did not join me.
Long ago, downtown Chicago along the river was built to have two levels: an upper, for use by office workers, tourists, etc, and a lower, for use by the folks who make deliveries, pick up the garbage, etc. Over a hundred years later, this infrastructure is still in place and very much used the same way.
The tour began near the Billy Goat Tavern, immortalized by John Belushi on Saturday Night Live.
It really is “Cheezborger,cheezborger, chips, no fries”
We immediately began searching the nearby area for rats. We did not see any (they are not usually active in the morning), but there was clear evidence of many, many rat nests.
The most common rat in Chicago is the Norway rat, like this one here. Our tour guide informed us that the Norway rat originated in China – not Norway. At least it’s not called the Chicago rat.
Chicago is regularly reported as “the rattiest city in America”; however, this is just not true. Because rats live off of our refuse, the number of rats in a city is directly proportional to the number of humans. This is another of the many rat facts that one learns on this tour.
This lower level is vast, and home to untold numbers of rats.
After we learned how to recognize rat nests, the tour moved into the train tunnels, where we had the unexpected pleasure of seeing the Metra Holiday Train getting ready to go out for the season.
(file phot0)
Our tour director took our picture with the Holiday Train, and he said he would send it to us all, but alas, I guess he got busy, so here’s a old picture to give you an idea.
We also heard the story of the most famous rat from Chicago, Scabby.
It seems that Scabby was first a costume, like a sports mascot, but that turned out to be too uncomfortable, too small, and too friendly-looking. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of a huge, mean, inflatable rat and it spread like, well, rats.
There is a whole series of bewilderingly complicated pedestrian tunnels under downtown Chicago. In one tunnel, there is a beautiful display of several stained glass windows.
If you visit Chicago, you should go see these early twentieth century masterpieces outside Macy’s basement.
My favorite part of the tour was visiting the abandoned subway station.
Every bit as creepy as it looks, and not a place you would want to be caught alone late at night. Or anytime, really. The L trains roar by, but they do not stop.
It’s Chicago Architecture Open House this weekend, and the weather is unseasonably beautiful.
CVH and I went to see the Cliff Dweller’s club, a hangout for artists, creatives, and their hangers-on. The view from their rooftop patio is stunning.
We also were able to get into the member’s area of the Arts Club of Chicago. If you’ve ever looked at the “from the collection of” plaques at the art museum and wondered where those kind of people hang out, it’s here. Their dining room sports works by Braque, Miró, Picasso, Calder, and many others. Not a place I’ll ever get invited to eat. I’d be a little nervous to display such art pieces around food and drink, but it doesn’t seem to bother them.
And we were lucky enough to visit the old Maxim’s of Paris, now a private club and restored to its 1963 opulence. The Peacock Room is absolutely breathtaking:
We still often go downtown to the big department stores to shop. There’s not a lot of us downtown shoppers left; frankly, I don’t know how these stores are staying in business.
Marshall Field’s
Yet, we went to the old Marshall Field’s, found everything we were looking for, and then had lunch at the Walnut Room. The Walnut Room has been feeding shoppers since 1907, and I first ate there during the Eisenhower administration. It looks the same today.
We had a nice table with a lovely view of downtown, especially the Reliance Building. I tried to get a photo of CVH with the Reliance in the background, but I could not figure out how to override the flash and autoexposure on my mobile phone camera (and of course there are no help buttons).
I miss my old Pentax
However, CVH did get a nice picture of me with some of the walnut detail in the background:
A lovely day in Chicago, and we went to see Oz Park. This is a lovely little park in the tony Lincoln Park neighborhood. Why it’s called Lincoln Park I do not understand, because it’s not really that close to Lincoln Park (the park) at all. Which means when someone says “Lincoln Park”, you’re never completely certain where it is they are talking about.
Anyway, Oz Park has statues of the Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion, as well as Dorothy and Toto.
Here I am looking at Toto.
I do wonder why they don’t have a statue of the Wizard. They have statues of these losers and misfits, but not one of the hero.
Each spring in Texas, every Texan takes grandma and/or the kids on the road (out 290 for Houstonians) and takes pictures of them sitting in a bluebonnet field. I believe this is required by statute in Texas.
I have no idea who these people are.
We do not have bluebonnets in Chicago, but we do have tulips. Millions (literally) of tulips are planted each year. So here are our tulip pictures for this year.
