More snow, dibs, and the riverfront warms up

After a lot of snow and bitter cold, we had some more snow and more cold. The first photo here was part of the series at the lake front on the last post. I like the Accidentally Wes Anderson quality although a much more austere version! The others below show our house after being buried by more inches of snow. Our poor solar panels were buried under all that snow on the roof but got uncovered as the snow slid off after a few days. John really did an amazing job shoveling all the snow we got! You can see how hard it was to walk down the sidewalk on sections that weren’t shovelled.

Readers may remember the Dibs discussion from 2015… and this year with the amount of snow we had, Dibs returned! This year we did not participate, we just left the car where it was which solved the ethical question of whether to dibs or not. This year there was the usual “is that trash or dibs?” question, but also just a heck of a lot of chairs.

Dibs have a hard time coming to a graceful end. People start enjoying the reserved parking and keep putting a marker out for their space long after the street snow melts (see below). On Friday the city announced that starting Tuesday all dibs will be removed and thrown away. It’ll be like a big citywide spring cleaning.

The days are getting longer and we’ve had some really lovely sunset walks at the park. The first photo shows a snow-covered lagoon with just one goose – strange since they usually are in groups. The group has since returned for their friend. The bottom two photos are from a different day at sunset and the orange was where the sun was setting in the west and the pink was in the east.

This week I went ice skating with Sarah at Maggie Daley park (Sarah not pictured because I am not as good at remembering to take photos as she is!) Thanks for getting us tickets, Sarah!

On Friday, Debbie, Jeff and Maddie stopped by on their way home from the Shedd Aquarium. Museums are back open here at limited capacity and they were able to get reservations on a day off school for Maddie. We had a little fun time with Roux while they were here.

Today John and I went downtown to walk along the Riverwalk. It’s been warming up a lot and we are having a lot of snow melt. However, there was so much snow, so it can still be icy and snowy in places. The Riverwalk was really well cleared and a super pleasant way to spend some time outside. We went all the way from the furthest west point to the lake, and then back again.

At the lake, there’s a monument we hadn’t noticed before, a monument to the Chicago Wastewater System. After seeing how fragile water systems can be as in Texas recently with the big storms and cold temperatures, it was good timing to remind us what an amazing feat of engineering the Chicago water system is. Only ten of these “monuments of the millennium” were awarded and bravo to Chicago for receiving one!

After returning home we went for another walk before dark because the day was just that nice out. Heres some temps in F and C.

And on the way I took this photo to show that while we keep noting that the snow is melting fast, most paths are clear and it’s feeling so warm, it’s still February and we still have a fair covering of snow!