I went to post photos from the very warm long Easter weekend when I realized that just last week we had snow! We had a strangely heavy and sticky snowfall last Sunday, on April 14th, and even the next day there was still quite a bit on the ground. This is the snow near where I take my lunchtime walks, on April 15.
Then, the following Sunday, it was 70F / 20C and sunny, and John and I spent the day out on bikes!
But to start at the beginning of the weekend, on Friday the weather wasn’t so great, so we went to the Art Institute and did some other stuff downtown. Saturday was much nicer, and I had a very nice run in Humboldt Park in the morning while John went to yoga. The trees are starting to bud, with the weeping willows ahead of the bud and leaf game.
After getting cleaned up, we went on a “vacation in Chicago” to a neighborhood we haven’t spent much time in before, Andersonville. As you can see from the water tower below, it’s a traditionally Swedish area, and it’s full of cute restaurants and shops.
We went to Lost Larson for lunch, and I had this pickled herring sandwich. Delicious!
We bought a loaf of pumpkin seed kelp bread to take home.
Saturday night we had a fun night out with the Groves, and then Sunday morning went out for a bike ride. We cycled to and around Northerly Island, which is coming along nicely. The water was very green, with a darker blue strip out by the horizon.
We then decided to take the water taxi for fun from the museum campus to Navy Pier. Here’s the Shedd Aquarium from the water taxi, then the skyline.
At Navy Pier we got sandwiches and ate them in the conservatory area that I don’t think we’ve been to since Liam and Miles were small! It’s still very nice. Outside Navy Pier, over by where the fountains are on in summer, there’s an art exhibit with these water towers and they have light installations inside them, so when you stand beneath and look up, you see the neon lights and your own reflection. The photo below is all reflection, with the neon ladder going up into the distance.
The Riverwalk east of the Michigan Avenue bridge is completely torn up! I read today it is meant to reopen in May, and from the looks of the construction, it will be quite seriously re-done!
We cycled home and had plenty of down time left in the weekend for some reading in the back yard. I’m reading a really excellent book about trees, so how appropriate to do so beneath our own American Elm. Very little shade still from the leaves, but they are coming out and it’ll all be shady back there soon!
Beautiful photos from your adventures around Chicago! I knew there were water taxis on the river, but I didn’t know you could take a water taxi from the Shedd Aquarium to Navy Pier. I guess that depends on how calm the Lake water is on a given day.
Fortunately for those of us who don’t like lake swells, the route stays very much inside the breakers! We were thinking that Chicago could do like Sydney and really make travel by water part of the public transportation system. Also mom I think you’d really like the book I’m reading – the overstory!