Mike and I spent a little time in Chicago about a week ago :D Here’s our view from the top of the Willis Tower, using the Zumi. It also captured a pretty nice photo of the impressive columns at the Museum of Science and Industry…
… and other impressive architecture in the city.
We got a pass to various museums and city attractions, so we visited eight places in six days. It was more walking than I would do in a month in my home city, but definitely worth the effort to see all the new and wonderful things I’ve never seen before :D
I loved the miniature dioramas at the Field Museum. Here’s one about mummification that I especially like, mainly because I love how the light is filtered into the space. I could imagine people working on a hot sunny day, quietly and solemnly wrapping the body in strips of cloth.
Also at the Field Museum — a sloth! A giant tree sloth!!
Yup. I want to be a barnacle when I grow up.
Beautiful jelly fish at the Shedd Aquarium. I took many pictures and videos of them.
Don’t these green corals look knitted?
The sun filtering through the lily pads.
Marveled at more impressive architecture as we walked and took the transit around the city…
One of the train stations we frequented. They looked much older than the Toronto ones.
Owls at the Washington Harold Library! They remind me of the Guardians of Ga’hoole. This one in particular is kind of saying, “what you doing walking around and not reading a book?”
Cloud Gate is a must-see :D
I’ve read about Cloud Gate in art history books but never fully appreciated it until I saw it in person. Seeing the hundreds of people walking around it and interacting with it, all intrigued by their own reflections, makes me realize how clever a public art piece it is. It’s a sculpture that interacts with everything in its environment; it sits perfectly still yet it actively invites people in its environment to interact with it.
Speaking of things I’ve read in art history books, we also visited the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio. I didn’t buy the pass to take photos of the interior, but here I found the tallest, largest ginkgo tree I’ve ever seen! I so wanted to offer a hug but there was a flower bed around it :(
And here’s an amazing community art piece at one of the train stations, called Hopes and Dreams. It’s made by the people who visited the various museums during the summer of 1999, at the turn of the century. There’s a nice write-up about it here.
This is from the Adler Planetarium, early drawings by astronomers to record what they saw in the sky. I took a photo of it because I thought it would make a nice embroidery pattern.
We also went to the Jane Addams’ Hull-House Museum, one of the first settlement houses in North America, I believe. Didn’t take many photos there, but I bought a book that was part of the Alternative Labeling Project at the museum, which I just found out that it is entirely online! So you can read it too, Jane Addams’ Travel Medicine Kit by Terri Kapsalis. It’s a very short read and I highly recommend it. This is a quote from the book that I really like:
There are many ways to arrive at an understanding. We must not conflate brilliance with ease and comfort. Trembling knees and an unrelenting sense of failure is one way forward.
All in all we had the most wonderful time in the windy city. We even celebrated our 6th anniversary with deep dish pizza and root beer! :D
Feeling blessed to be able to travel and see things, and to have a community of people to share traveling photos with! :D Thank you so much for visiting!
