The Carpe swim club met today for a winter swim at the Hotel Intercontintal on Michigan Avenue. The Fitness Center floor there is really lovely, and we were able to swim laps and do a bit of hanging out in the “junior olympic” sized pool. And afterwards we had some…

Friday morning we got a glimpse that the sun is still out there! Then got some more snow. It hasn’t snowed much this winter, with just a barely 2 inches by the end of today. The park was very pretty with a lot of soft gray in the sky and…

Last week we saw an art exhibit called Exact Dutch Yellow at the cultural center – twice! The second time was during a musical performance by two cellists. The show explored color as shown through light and also pigments, and it also referenced some historical documents on how to describe…

We caught some rare sunshine today on a lunch walk. And the lagoon was part ice and part water, making some interesting lines and patterns.

One of the highlights of our recent trip to Sydney (besides sun, sea and Rory!) was visiting some of the new art museums in the city, and others that we’re new to us! There were so many really fun exhibitions, I hope these photos do them justice! The first was…

As part of our trip to Australia, myself and Colman had an opportunity to go hiking in the Snowy Mountains, camping overnight along the way. Despite being quiet warm, there was a surprising amount of snow still on the trails, making for some very slippy sections, but it did a…

Halloween decorations are in full swing around here! A house near us has 4 skeletons and they set them up in a different vignette every few days (maybe even every day! It changes very frequently). Although there are some rumblings about the weather cooling off, it’s really been very pleasant.…

Then second half of September also did not disappoint, and October is off to a great start! First, in mid-September, we had some friends who John used to work with over for dinner in our back yard. Great seeing everyone! Right after the autumnal equinox, which was on Sept 22…

The blog is back in the upper midwest, with lots of outdoors time in the first part of September. Over the long weekend at the beginning of the month, I met Annette for a bike ride along the Chicago river trail and empanadas at Cafe Tola (in the former Hot…

Ken put together a video of every mile we hiked along the John Muir Trail, all 75 miles, check it out!