Third of July Festivities

Chicago has its big 4th of July fireworks display on the 3rd, and it coincides with the last weekend of the annual "Taste of Chicago" festival, one of the most popular in the city. I don't attend the "Taste" because the idea of eating standing up in huge crowds of people on a hot July day just doesn't appeal to me for some reason. I do like fireworks, though.

People are encouraged not to drive on days of big gatherings downtown, especially the third (this year a million and a half people gathered at the lakefront). Chicago has a decent public transportation system with a great suburban rail network, there is no reason to have to drive downtown most days and on summer days with large events it is almost impossible to find a place to park if you do.

For some reason, people don't listen to the warning, and downtown turns into a parking lot. On days like that I really don't envy emergency crews trying to get through the mess.

The evening for me was mostly a chance to play with my camera - one thing I did learn, it's hard to get a good representative picture of a million and a half people at night while being jostled in the crowd (for the fireworks I used a tripod, but for all the other shots it wasn't really feasible).

(I'm also learning that Blogger is probably not the best or easiest program to use to post and format text and pictures together - getting the different pictures situated around the text is a chore.)

Everyday trompe l'oeil

There are planters on the sidewalks of Chicago (I'm not sure how ubiquitous they are, I haven't conducted a formal survey) that look like they are carved with indentations around the sides. Interested in this detail on such a mundane and easily vandalized thing, one day I took a closer look. Come to find out, the three dimensional looking indentations are painted on. I tried to get shots from various angles so it would be obvious, but they are done so well, it's very hard to tell without touching them. A very interesting detail that few notice, I'm sure. And yes, Chicago is almost obsessive about having flowers all over the place.

Random Shoes

I always wonder about the stories behind the random shoes (and hats) you often spot on the sides of the road or on a sidewalk, was it intentional and do the owners miss them? Clothing items seen on the sides of highways are particularly baffling - did they blow out of cars or did the owners lose them in the course of an emergency stop?

This shoe was probably found on the sidewalk and placed on top of the draw bridge support on a bridge downtown. It's a child's pink plastic sandal - I'll bet the mom wasn't happy when she discovered the loss!

Five things that may surprise you about Chicago

1. The Chicago River still has freight traffic. In fact everyday you can see tugboats pushing barges that just barely fit - and on occasion you will see them hit a bridge pylon.



2. Some of the ultra modern skyscrapers in the city have their windows cleaned by guys in bosun's chairs.

3. When you dig into the city's streets, you are quite likely to find old railroad tracks (they're digging here to bury a new water main). Although there are still a lot of trains going in and out of Chicago, in the past there were more. Chicago used to have it's own Grand Central Station, which is now only a memory (I think the tracks pictured actually used to lead into Grand Central).

4. The Chicago River is popular for kayakers and canoers(spellcheck doesn't like either of these words) as well as the occasional crew team practice.

5. There is (or was) a flower box facing the river. There are actually flowers growing in it and they're being regularly watered - but why?

The Many Shades of Off White

Looking for off-white paint the other day, I discovered that no such thing exists. Instead there are shades like: “cream puff,” “pearl,” “angel food,” “gypsum,” “clam island,” “cape honey flower,” “china white,” “vanilla custard,” “lambswool white,” “crumb cookie,” “antique white,” “horseradish,” or “turban shell.”

All of which look off white to me.