No Spring (yet) this year. Last week’s photo showed CVH in her parka on Michigan Avenue, and today it was 28°C (82°F) in Chicago. They don’t turn on our air conditioning for another week, so the cat is hot:
Each Spring, Chicago plants billions (well, at least a million) tulips along Michigan Avenue. Each Spring, Chicago raises the bridges downtown to let sailboats that have been in storage all winter out into the lake. Each Spring, Chicago finally warms up after a long, cold winter.
This morning we went downtown to watch the bridge lift and see the tulips and enjoy the weather.
We saw the tulips, but for some reason, they did not raise the bridges, and as you can tell from the coat, it’s not warm either.
On the morning of 3 March 1934, infamous bank robber John Dillinger escaped from the jail in Crown Point, Indiana. Supposedly he used a wooden gun that he had carved there to fool the guards.
Earlier, upon arriving in Crown Point, John had some rather casual pictures taken with the Sheriff and Prosecutor. His escape and these photos ended their political careers.
After leaving the jail, Dillinger went to the garage next to the courthouse, stole the Sheriff’s Ford V8, and took it to Chicago, abandoning it a block from where we now live.
These days, it’s a lot harder to find a parking spot in our neighborhood. The hundred-year-old L tracks in the background are being rebuilt this year.
A Dillinger buff eventually tracked the car down, restored it, and even took it back to Crown Point to show it off.
There are hundreds of laundromats (“washaterias” CVH calls them) in Chicago. I can see where it is difficult for laundromat owners to come up with a distinctive name for their business. Some don’t try very hard at all, like “Coin Laundry”.
Some try a little harder, but “Spin Cycle” isn’t exactly original or poetic, either.
I take my items that don’t go in the coin machine to a neighborhood cleaners, Smile Cleaners. It’s a nice, positive name.
Fun Wash, is positive too, but might be pushing it a bit far. Ditto for Wash & Relax.
The one that never fails to tickle me is Fluffy Laundry. I just love that name.
My second place goes to Happy Bubble.
There’s a LaundryLand in our neighborhood. Not the most imaginative name, but they have a really great sign.
A nice, sunny day in Chicago. Wind chill was -20°C. But it was sunny. So we decided to stroll down Michigan Avenue.
One of the major problems in going anywhere in Chicago in the winter is deciding how to dress. You can either dress for inside, and freeze when you’re outside, or dress for outside and roast when you are inside. So you must determine if your trip is going to be an outside one or inside one. Or resign yourself to significant discomfort. We chose to dress for outside and limit our time indoors.
We stopped in at The Drake, a Chicago landmark for 100 years. They have a nice gift shop; there were lots of rabbits (not real ones, of course).
We visited Hildt Galleries there at The Drake. They had rabbits, too, although they were not in our price range.
Since we were getting warm in our coats, we went back outside to walk around. Soon we were at the old Water Tower/Pumping Station. My grandmother always pointed out the Water Tower to me when I was a tot, remarking that it was one of the few structures to survive the Great Fire of 1871. The Pumping Station still pumps water for the city (Chicago sucks a billion gallons of water out of the lake every day).
Sixty years later, I finally got to go inside. Not much to see; the functioning parts aren’t open for public view. But finally I can say I was there, and check off another required-for-Chicagoans task item.
Nearby was the Lush store, always worth stopping in for a sniff.
We walked past the line of people waiting in the cold to get into the big (35,000 square feet) Starbucks. There is always a line outside.
I can’t imagine what is there that is worth freezing for, and I guess I will never find out.
Further on down was Garrett’s Popcorn. CVH informed me that this is a Chicago tradition. People were waiting outside for it, too, mostly tourists, I guess. We waited a little while ourselves (remember we were dressed for outside), and bought some Pecan Caramel Crisp.
I was leery about paying that much for popcorn, but after I tasted it I will allow that it is very good.
We ended our trip at the Wrigley Building, a favorite spot for wedding party photographs, and today was no exception. The men had on tuxes, which provided some protection from the cold, I suppose, but the women in their gowns must have been freezing. I can only imagine that the excitement of her big day was the only thing keeping the bride in her backless gown from succumbing to hypothermia.
Even though we don’t drive, we went to the Chicago Auto Show, billed as the largest in the nation.
There were a lot of very shiny vehicles there.
I was hoping to see real-life examples of electric car technology, but Toyota seemed to be the only company giving any significant attention to electric cars. The overwhelming emphasis at the show was on gasoline powered trucks. Of course, American manufacturers don’t make regular cars anymore, having ceded that market to overseas. But even Nissan was focussed on their trucks, and didn’t have an single Altima or Maxima there.
On the other hand, if you wanted to drive a truck over a crazy steep hill, this was the place to be.
This was very popular. Perhaps because there are no hills in Chicago.
There were a number of sports cars that you could sit in, but of course you could not turn on the engine. I sat in a Dodge Hellcat.
It’s not that impressive as a parked car. I looked in the car’s performance statistics using the dashboard computer and saw that it had never gone faster than ninety miles an hour. What a waste.
The ads said that there would be classic cars from local car clubs on display, but alas, there were no club booths. Ford did bring an electrified F-100, which I thought was cool.
The most spectacular display, though, was not an automobile at all, but Subaru’s National Park display. Beautiful aerial images of western parks (Denali, Arches, Yosemite) displayed on a wraparound screen and an imaging floor. It even snowed on you! (Not exactly enchanting for Chicagoans.)
The nicest car to sit in was this Lincoln.
I’m not kidding. You could sit in this vehicle for a week. It made everything else at the show feel like a city bus.
If you knew me in college, when I lived in the land of ice and snow, you would have heard me complain about the weather. And how I was cold all the time.
And you would have heard me say (many, many times) that, when I graduated, I was going to move to a place where it didn’t snow and I would never, ever, ever come back north.
And I did so, living in Houston for many years, and enjoying Houston weather.
Yet here I am, living more or less happily in Chicago. How could this be? There are some reasons.
However, I am still cold all the time.
The Lunar New Year parade in our neighborhood today.
Sixty-fifth anniversary of the Bezazian branch of the Public Library. Bezazian was a WW II hero.
Wind chill was -15°C. Everyone had a good time. Although I imagine those drummers’ fingers were rather stiff by the end of the parade.
I frequently ride the Chicago Transit Authority bus. The most common bus in our part of town is the sixty-foot 4000 series New Flyer. It bends in the middle.
I’ve always been impressed at how the drivers maneuver these big critters through traffic and around corners.
Recently, drivers were practicing parallel parking these buses on our street. I was very impressed.
We went downtown this evening to see the lights. Billions and billions of little twinkly lights.
“I don’t remember all these lights when I was a little kid,” I told CVH.
“That’s because they didn’t have all these lights when you were little. They didn’t have little white lights back then. All they had were the big ones that didn’t work very well.”
“That would explain it.”
We saw the big blue tree down by The Bean.
We stopped at the Palmer House. It’s the 150th anniversary for the hotel (and the hotel burning to the ground in The Great Fire); they had a nice selection of historical ephemera and memorabilia on display. There were photos of celebrities who played the Empire Room, and menus from Trader Vic’s, where I ate once as a small kid. It was a fabulous place for a little kid; not sure why such kitschy excess appealed to adults.
The hotel had a nice tree, complete with “150th Anniversary” ornaments:
All this holiday folderol put me in a generous mood, and I took CVH over to one of her favorite restaurants, Russian Tea Time.
The piroshkies! The blinchikis! It’s delicious.
On the way home we saw more twinkly lights, and the horns on Macy’s.
