Monday, November 4, 2013

Chicago

After a fun and successful weekend in Tennessee, it was time to move on to Chicago.  John's turn!  He was interested in attending the Solar Power International conference and I was more than happy to tag along and check out the city for the first time.

John spent his days at the conference and I wandered around the city enjoying the sun and blue skies while trying to keep warm (luckily we had brought plenty of warm clothes for the Big Dog race).  The Windy City was living up to its name.

Even the pigeons were bundled up:


View from the park:


Art by Jun Kaneko on display:


Beautiful outdoor venue:


Love the Bean!


Selfie #2:


Selfie #3 (from underneath):


Another Bean reflection:


I enjoyed walking along the lake:


Having a whale of a time:


More public art:


At the aquarium:


Copernicus at the planetarium:


A bit of fall color:


View from the sledding hill (possibly the high point of Chicago?), including Soldier Field:


We were excited to take a tour of the Red Frog office, after being invited there multiple times.  It was great!  What a neat place to work.  They have creative people and wonderful spaces, fun conference rooms, a zip line and a climbing wall, a tree house, and several open floors in a neat building downtown.  It was like a mini Google.

Wish I had taken a picture!  We were just enjoying ourselves too much.

After that, John came with me to the top of the John Hancock building.  Nice views!




Posing with Big John:


John went back to work and I continued my wanderings.  It was so easy to get around, we were impressed with the public transportation.  That was even before I came upon these interesting "bike parking" boxes:


More art:


Part of the Navy Pier:



The office of WBEZ Chicago where they produce one of our favorite podcasts, "This American Life":


Appropriately named "Windy" tall ship:


Apparently Chicago went with the fire hydrant theme for their art project (by the way, Troy NY has a bunch of Uncle Sam's right now):


Look out!


The Bean at night:


We enjoyed Chicago!  It was just a little taste, I'm sure we'll be back again for more.

No comments: