Exploring Chicago

Outside the Field Museum
Let's be honest, I don't have the best impression of the city of Chicago. 

In my mind, it's just a scatter of weird neighborhoods with some tall building in between. And finding anything worth finding takes way too much searching. 

So when Dave got a hotel room for a weekend-long conference, we decided to crash his hotel room so we could explore "the loop" on foot. 

We left Saturday after soccer practice on a warm 80-degree day. By the time we got downtown, the temperature dropped 15 degrees and it was pouring rain. 

The next morning, it was 50-degrees and raining. Not what I had packed for. We did our best. Got to the Field Museum and stopped at Old Navy for sweatshirts. 

In Front of Sue the T-Rex
So, instead of walking around "the Loop" and maybe Miracle Mile, we did the Field Museum, packed up and went home. 

This seems to happen to us a lot in Chicago. The weather here just never cooperates with my planning. Oh well. We'll try again in a few weeks -- when I really want to get the Art Institute. 

A word about the Field Museum: We got there at opening and spent nearly three hours, so not a bad morning exploring the different exhibits. And we had the place mostly to ourselves, which was nice. 

So, the jury is still out in Chicago. There's still more exploring to do. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The $80 Kitchen Pantry Update

Image
It took two days and about $80 in supplies, and now our kitchen pantry is REBORN! Here's a quick review of the project in pictures, starting with the BEFORE pictures: My main issue with the wire shelves were bottles or anything "thin" would tip over. And with my commitment to bulk, I wanted to store glass containers in here but knew they wouldn't be "safe." I foresaw broken glass at some point. Plus, it's a great space, so I knew I could add more storage space if I was strategic. Last, wire shelves are ugly. So then I demo'd the pantry and painted the walls (which was just primer) with leftover paint from the rest of the house. It's called Polar Bear. I paid an electrician to install an outlet at "counter height" in the pantry, so I could move the dumb microwave off the counter. (The electrician did a slew of other small jobs around the house, not just this outlet, including a motion-activated light in this pantry. Tres Fancy
Keep reading »

Family Calendar Improvement

Image
 Made a quick improvement at the start of the school year that I'm pretty excited about.  And yes, I'm probably the only one excited about it, but here goes ...  Here's our "command central" in our kitchen. This is a good landing spot, and a central place to all look at the family calendar ... it's that huge wipe board in the middle of the photo. All our activities are supposed to be written on here and our electronic family calendar on Google.  (Brief aside: my family is the WORST at writing their plans down in either calendar and Dave still doesn't share his events on our Google Shared Family Calendar consistently, which makes me nuts. And they all ask me "what are we doing today?" instead of looking at the calendar, usually directly behind me. But, that's another post.) I went to so much trouble putting this little area together and that huge calendar with wobbly writing was really killing the sophisticated look of that space. PLUS, we don
Keep reading »

Basement Shiplap Project

Image
The guys left me all the unused shiplap from the bathroom and I've been trying to think about where to use it. I had so many ideas but not a lot of shiplap, so I eventually settled on this corner of our basement. It's where the exercise mats and treadmill live, right behind the sofa. And also where the Marvel-themed bathroom with shiplap is located. So it made sense. It took much of a rainy Sunday to cut and nail up the new boards ...    I even had enough to do on the "backsplash" of our little kitchenette in the basement I've been slowly building out.  Next up will be to patch all the nail holes and calk around the edges for a clean look. And then the best part ... picking out paint color. Since this is a "free" project, I'm hoping I can find a color in my paint cabinet.  I'll keep you posted. 
Keep reading »