Month: September 2022

On our second fall-like day, I headed out after a run and breakfast to the Garfield Park Conservatory, which comes up as the number two item listed on TimeOut’s 55 Best Things to do in Chicago Right Now.” After having seen it, I can’t say that I disagree. It also was a walkable jaunt (just under an hour) from our current residence. It is also free, although they do accept donations.

It was constructed in the early 1900s as an urban oasis, and it is that, with both indoor and outdoor gardens. The indoor space, which contains a palm house, fern room, desert house, among others, is referred to as “landscape art under glass.” See what you think.

Bob focused on travel planning today while hanging with Murphy, our nephew and niece’s adorable dog. He is sitting with him (about 25 minutes away) while his parents are at a wedding in Nashville.

One of the things I have done after landing in Chicago is to Google things to see in the Logan Square neighborhood. Of course, Humboldt Park and the 606 trail come up, but there were some other points of interest too. So, yesterday I did a little walkabout to see these myself and capture some other things that caught my eye. Bob rested his hip at the house.

Yesterday afternoon, Bob and I drove to the North Center neighborhood to meet up with our nephew Nick. We had a great dinner at Bodega Sur.

Happy Tuesday! Bob had a productive day at our residence yesterday coordinating some needed medical procedures for later this year. I drove about 90 minutes up the road to Rockford, Illinois, to meet my mom for lunch. She is doing well, and I got to catch up on family news.

Yesterday afternoon, we went to Scofflaw, which had been recommended by our homeowner and our niece/nephew, for a happy hour drink. It was a cute venue, and the staff were very friendly as well.

Today, Bob wanted to get out for a bit to at least see the 606/Bloomingdale pedestrian trail. It was quiet on the trail, and he got to see what it looks like and look over Humboldt Boulevard, where we’re currently staying.

After our short perusal of the trail, Bob went back to the residence, and I continued down Humboldt to the very large and lovely Humboldt Park. We had driven by the park on our arrival into the Logan Square neighborhood last Wednesday, but we hadn’t yet explored it on foot.

Per the Chicago Park’s website, in 1869, Humboldt Park was named in honor of Baron Freidrich Heinrich Alexander Von Humboldt (1759-1859), the famous German scientist and explorer. He was not famous to me, so I Googled him. He sounds like a well-rounded smart guy, but is most known for his work on botanical geography, which apparently laid the foundation for biogeography. That drew another blank for me (did they teach me nothing in school?!). Biogeography deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals.

Anyhoo, back to the park that was named in his honor. Again from the park website, Humboldt Park totals 197.26 acres and is home to a large, historic fieldhouse with a fitness center, two gymnasiums and meeting rooms, as well as an inland beach, and the historic lagoons and boat house. I spent close to an hour checking it out.

It’s a beautiful day here. Mid 60s during my run. High 70s/low 80s when I was walking around. Another day in the 80s tomorrow before a cold front comes through to bump us down 20 degrees or so.

Bob and I spent the day with family on Saturday. Bob picked up his nephew that lives in Chicago, and the two drove 3.5 hours to Iowa City to tailgate and then attend the Iowa versus Nevada football game. Iowa ended up winning at about 2:00 am this morning after a few rain delays. Bob’s group left about 9:30 or so.

I left the house yesterday morning about 8:45 am and walked the 5.5 miles, about 2.5 hours, to visit my aunt who has just had a liver transplant. She has been home from the hospital for about a week. It’s a pretty intense care regimen for my other aunt who is down from Wisconsin caring for her.

It was great to see them both, although there is a long road ahead. I visited for a few hours and then brought the El back (red line to blue line). It was a lovely day for an outing.

Today, Bob and I walked to our closest L station to plan my route tomorrow to visit my aunts, who are in the Near South Side neighborhood of Chicago, just north of Chinatown. Bob’s hip didn’t enjoy the outing, so he headed back to our current residence, while I continued the walkabout that we had planned.

I walked down Milwaukee from the California L stop on the blue line towards the 606, or Bloomingdale Trail. I have seen signage for both. I have run on the trail but wanted Bob to see it and also wanted to get some photos.

We also continue to be amused by Wilma, aka Silly Willy.

Bob and I started house sit #111 last evening with a quick walk through with the owners before they headed off to St. Louis (wedding!) and then Mexico (honeymoon!). We’re excited to be able to care for their great apartment and fun cat, Wilma, during this exciting time for them.

We are residing in the Logan Square neighborhood, which is northwest of downtown Chicago. We have already checked out their local branch library, the 606 pedestrian trail, and a nearby market. There seems to be lots of other eating/ drinking options around as well.

Wilma, the cat, is one-year old and loves to play. She’s quite friendly and curious about things.

It has not been a terribly exciting day, as Beth spent at least two hours at the dentist today having a crown put on a tooth that chipped the other night. However, we’re thankful she was able to get an appointment and hopefully no more tooth drama for awhile.

We started off today with a workout in the hotel gym, with Bob biking (per hip orthopedic specialist suggestion) and Beth running before taking advantage of the hotel breakfast and heading out.

First stop was Union Plaza (a six-acre urban park) to get a pic of Bob with a big head sculpture. It was a 20 minute walk and the plaza area was beautiful with green grass and connections to a great hike/bike trail system that runs quite a ways.

The second stop was the Nebraska State Capitol. We timed our arrival to hit the 10am (free) tour. The building is billed as the US’s first modern capitol, as it was built from 1922-32. The prior two buildings on the site lasted a total of 50 years between them. It was an informative tour of a colorful and interesting building.

The guided part of the tour ended on the second floor with a visit to the one legislative chamber, but she encouraged us to visit the State Law Library on the 3rd level and to go to the 14th level to see the Memorial Chamber and for views of the surrounding area. Up we went.

The third stop was the Sunken Gardens which began in the 1930s as a Depression-era project. Beth walked there from the capitol, and Bob took the short walk to the hotel to get the car for our next stops. The gardens were small but very colorful.

We took the car to our fourth stop, the Haymarket area (yesterday, we hit this area but just on the south side). We wanted to check this area out more and to get a pic of Bob with two more Big Head Sculptures and to go to an international licorice shop that we had seen advertised.

The final tourist stop was Pioneers Park Nature Center. The park seemed to be set up for a big cross-country event. We had our snack lunch there before stopping at a market to pick up tonight’s dinner.

Yesterday, Saturday, we finished our house sit in Denver. We had a seven-hour drive to Lincoln, Nebraska. We usually don’t like to drive more than five to six hours but made an exception as we had not been to Lincoln and were hoping to watch Nebraska play volleyball. We didn’t make the match but got checked into our Lincoln Marriott Cornhusker Hotel with all the fans coming in for the football game. The place was hopping but check-in was easy. Yesterday afternoon and evening we watched a few football games that we were interested in (not Nebraska) and just grabbed dinner from the hotel restaurant downstairs, called Miller Time Pub and Grill.

At the hotel, we have access to the Concierge Lounge, so we picked up some free breakfast there this morning. Shortly thereafter, we set out to see some sites. First, a couple Big Head Sculptures for Bob.

After the big head photos, we continued our walk around the University of Nebraska campus. It’s very walkable, but we were surprised at the lack of campus maps posted.

Beth had found what looked online to be a nice food market, so we walked there after our campus tour. It was a great store with a good mix of fresh produce, shelf stable foods, and prepared ready-to-go meals at good prices. On our way from the university area we walked a bit more in the downtown area and also got to the edge of Lincoln’s historic Haymarket District, which has retail and restaurants in restored older buildings.

After we got back to the hotel, Beth worked out in the fitness center while Bob watched his Steelers play (won over Cincinnati in overtime!)

Tonight, we’ll likely check out the social hour in the Concierge Lounge and then have dinner in our room with what we picked up at the market.

Before I talk about our day, I wanted to share another photo of Coco. She’s a sweetie. She likes resting/sleeping, walking (or just rolling in the grass), and eating and treats. She’s definitely easy care and goes into her crate when we leave, but also expresses her pleasure when we return. This morning she was cuddling with Bob, so I had to get a photo.

For our outing today, we took the W line of Denver’s light rail to Union Station to check out the LoDo (lower downtown) section of Denver. We drove to a garage to park and then did a short walk to the station, where we had a short wait for the train.

The interesting thing about Denver’s Union Station is that there are 2 sections to it. The part we arrived at is just a light rail stop. You can then walk a few blocks to the main terminal, either above ground or underground by the bus stops. From where we arrived, we initially approached the back of the main terminal before walking through the building and then out the front.

Our homeowners have season tickets for the Colorado Rockies baseball team. They were kind enough to leave us tickets for today’s afternoon game at Coors Field. We decided this last minute not to go to the game, which was going to be quite warm, but we still wanted to check out the field a little bit. Since we were there within 2 hours of game time, we were able to get in, and everyone was very nice — even taking us right to an elevator when they saw Bob limping. It’s a beautiful stadium.

The LoDo neighborhood also has a number of old buildings that have been renovated for new purposes as well as just lots of retail and restaurants.

Today, Bob and I got our art fix by visiting Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District. This district is located just south of downtown and contains four art museums, a women’s history museum, a state history center, the main public library, a counterterrorism education learning lab, and opens into the Civic Center Park which lies between the very attractive City and County Building and the state capitol.

The museum we had tickets for was the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art. This is a great small museum which has three areas of focus — 1) international decorative art from a range of periods (Art Deco, modern, postmodern, Bauhaus, arts and crafts), 2) Colorado and regional art, and 3) Vance Kirkland, the artist for whom the museum was named. Everything is displayed in a salon style, as if you are getting to peruse various individual’s homes. We highly recommend a visit.

Bob and I loved so many of the pieces in the museum, and I took way too many photos. But I’ve just picked a few that were especially fun or interesting.

Vance Kirkland (1900-1981) was an artist but also the founding director and professor of art at the Denver School of Art. He created about 1,200 paintings in his lifetime, spanning 5 Art periods — Designed Realism, Surrealism, Hard Edge Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, and The Dot Paintings. Two examples of his work are below.

Finally, one of the draws was the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit of some of his interior pieces from his buildings. They also showed a clip of his interview with Mike Wallace (smoking throughout), and we got to sit in Wright-designed chairs while we watched.