Still in love

I had hoped to post a little something every day that I was in Chicago, but Blogger doesn't play well with the iPad. Add overall exhaustion by the end of the day, and there was nothing but the sound of crickets around here.

This trip was amazing. I've been to Chicago around 20 times. It is my home away from home, where my heart has lived since the first time I stepped off the L in the Loop sometime in the '90s. But this trip? Truly special.

When we were planning it I decided to say yes to everything because I suspected it would be the last time I'd go for quite some time. (It's become too expensive; long gone are the days of $90 roundtrip airfares and 4-star hotels for $79/night.)

So, I bought really good tickets to two baseball games:

This hashtag speaks to me, so much so that I looked everywhere for a t-shirt (no luck). #missedopportunitycubsmarketingteam

The reasons I so badly wanted to see the Cubs play at Wrigley this year: Kris Bryant (swinging...and missing) and Anthony Rizzo on deck. The entire team is talented and great fun but these two are special.

They won both games -- a true treat. This is the only picture I took at the second game. I may have been too busy being annoyed by the people seated around me to think about pictures. It was pretty clear they were only there to be able to brag about having seen the Cubs play at Wrigley. I don't think any of them paid attention to a full at-bat, let alone an inning. I could have let that go with an eye roll if their constant leaving and coming back hadn't blocked my view of what was happening on the field.

We had a crazy good meal at Ruth's Chris:

Lobster and a filet with garlic mashed potatoes (me) and fingerling potatoes (Mica). There was dessert too but I was embarrassed enough taking this picture and wasn't getting my phone out a second time. I sent this to Eve and Paul (his request because it tops the list of restaurants he wants to try).

 We took a terrific neighborhood tour given by the Chicago Architecture Foundation:

The tour was on a double-decker bus. The only stops occurred at stop lights, so I didn't even try to take pictures while moving. The neighborhoods we visited were established by ethnic groups who built houses and buildings that reminded them of home. Many of those details remain if you know where to look. This picture has nothing to do with the tour. At one red light I noticed this old church sharing the landscape with the new construction and liked the juxtaposition.

 And after that we took another CAF tour, this one a river cruise (we've done this one many times but much has changed since the last one):

One of my favorites. It faces the river where it bends. The building is curved to mimic the bend. The glass is two shades of green, representing the sunlight and shadows of the water. It's stunning in person (especially without all the reflections).

I snapped this as an afterthought. It's a decent representation of the architectural styles, from the traditional to the innovative. 

We went to an art festival in Old Town, a gorgeous neighborhood on the northern edge of downtown, and the annual lit festival in Printers Row, a part of downtown once dominated by the publishing industry in Chicago. We spent an hour sitting on a bench in my favorite small park tucked into a neighborhood. There, we chatted with the guy who brought his twin girls there to play, and while they drew on the sidewalks with chalk, he, like us, waited for walkers to go by with dogs who wanted strangers to pet them.

We walked through one part of Lincoln Park and hoped to return on Sunday to see more but it rained all day Sunday. Next time. And there will be a next time. There has to be. I thought I could be done with Chicago, but no. It still feels like home. It still has my heart.

One more photo. This is a wonderful sculpture we came across as we tried to find a shortcut to get us out of the rain.

Mica: Are you just going to hang out here for awhile?
Me: No...Why?
Mica: A group of men in suits. I assumed you would want to stay and stare.