Armed with my ever-present cameras, I document my life & adventures around the globe through photography. My passion for learning, journeys near & far, wine, marathons & my 2 Vizslas are shared through pictures and stories.
Happy New Years to everybody out in blog world! I was so excited to finish with my Chicago posts that I didn’t get around to starting on my Christmas review. I’ll start the year off right tomorrow by getting all those posts uploaded & starting on my recap/preview posts for the beginning of January.
Hope everybody has an awesome & safe evening- we’re off the the Rockets game with family!
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Tomorrow is 2010! I’m pretty sad to see 2009- it’s been an amazing year.
Our very last stop of the trip was at the famed Lincoln Park Zoo. We found the right bus from Old Navy Pier & rode up north to one of the country’s last free zoos.
The entrance we used was beautiful with all the summer flowers blooming in full force.
I really like how they did such a great job of making it as natural as possible, especially all the big, old trees.
The lion house was neat with areas where the people walked through & the animals could go inside or outside in their cage.
I had to use a flash on this poor guy, but it was just too dark & he was pacing so much and showing off his teeth.
Continuing the wonderful arcitecture of Chicago, many of the buildings had the fabulous old brick look.
We didn’t stay very long- mostly just popped in to check it out, but it looks like a wonderful place to spend the day with kids.
All in all, I adored Chicago. I wished we’d have had better weather & I’ve really enjoyed just remembering through all the photos.
The public transportation reminded me of one of the major things that Houston is missing & how great the train can be.
It took a while for me to grasp that sometimes the train was up…
…and sometimes it was down.
Hope you enjoyed my mini-tour of Chicago!
Although H had been to Wrigley Field before I met him, he has no pictures to show of the trip with his friends to Chicago. So we decided to re-visit the park & take some photos.
It’s always happy hour on vacation, so we stopped in to Harry Caray’s Tavern right across the street for drinks and a snack.
I’d love to see the energy and excitement of this ballpark on a game day. It’s plopped right down in the middle of a neighborhood- no freeway runs by it, no giant sprawling parking lots surround it.
There was a high school game that day & a nice lady outside gave us free passes to come in & watch the game.
I loved all the rooftop seating on the adjacent buildings. So much history here!
The other Harry Caray’s Tavern downtown was just a few blocks from our hotel.
One of our good friends is from Chicago- he still has family that lives there & they own this bar just 2 blocks from our hotel. We went in for a few drinks one night & loved it!
They are serious about their food here…there are some amazing restaurants & I highly recommend reservations if you don’t want to wait a few hours (we learned the hard way!)
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: My end-of-year office cleaning is done!
Our next stop in Chicago was to head down to Grant Park & Millennium Park. I loved the great architecture, wonderful art work and of course, the great big green areas.
All this- right in the middle of downtown, surrounded by skyscrapers.
This new amphitheatre looks like a fabulous place to catch a concert.
The lawn area itself was closed off, but I just loved the feeling of being surrounded by modern art while at a concert.
Even the speakers for the rear portions of the hill were very cool.
Technically called Cloud Gate, and NOT the Bean, we had a blast with this hip sculpture.
What a great husband- even carrying my camera bag for me! Love the reflection of the skyline.
We had way too much fun with this.
Can you find me?
Everywhere we turned in the park there was some unique and fun artwork to enjoy.
Then we came across a very cool waterpark. There was a long skinny area, with these two giant screens on each end facing each other. The images were usually of faces & would blink and move slightly.
There was water in the middle and water falling down the sides….
But occasionally a mouth with squirt out a big stream of water.
We walked past the Lollapalooza concert & to the lake front, where we strolled back up North for some lunch at the Navy Pier.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Got lots of fun new camera stuff for Christmas- can’t wait to start playing with it.
The next day we started out from our hotel & headed up the Magnificent Mile for some fabulous shopping en route to Hancock Tower. There is a very cool old water tower right in the shadow of the mammoth building.
I’d heard the views are actually better from here than the Sears Tower & I was not disappointed! Especially with such beautiful weather & everybody outside enjoying the summer.
We could see the Old Navy Pier, and of course put that on our list of sites to see before we left town.
I wouldn’t have guessed there was an actual beach, with sand and sunbathers even, in Chicago!
Oh that looks like a swanky place!
I love the big bend in the lake front & the pocket beach it forms.
Fun with my super-zoom lens.
All the skyscrapers were amazing & just kept going and going.
What cool little terraces on this building.
Looking back towards the main area of downtown it’s quite obvious that Chicago is a very special city.
And a little view of the water tower from up top.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: We finally saw Avatar IMAX and it was freaking awesome!
