Back in the Windy City
I have struck a city
– a real city – and they call it Chicago. . . . I urgently desire never to see it again. It
is inhabited by savages.
-Rudyard
Kipling, 1891
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| A picture I took of downtown Chicago (and tweaked on Instagram) |
Damn I love this city! Scrappy, arrogant and overly self-impressed, it's the thuggish, over-achieving younger brother of New York City who never quite feels like he measures up. Laid out like an towering pile of colored blocks cast down by God onto the edge of the prairie, it surprises everyone who sees it for the first time. When it's twenty below zero and the wind is screaming off Lake Michigan or a hundred degrees and ninety percent humidity and sweat is dripping off the tip of your nose, a day here can be like a prison sentence; but on a day like today, when there's light breezes off the lake and the air is crystalline and humidity-free and towering cumulonimbus clouds are providing a convenient backdrop to the skyline, I defy you to name a more spectacular spot in the universe.
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| The crowds down on Diversey Beach shortly after the end of the air and water show (thanks again to Instagram) |
This last Sunday was the second day of the
Air and Water Show and we had a front row view of the jets from the twenty-seventh floor at our friend's apartment. I've known Sam and Jill since I was in my late-twenties and, since Sam became the city planner for Boulder, Colorado, they're been dividing time between Chicago and Boulder. They whipped up a fantastic lunch for us and we watched the show from on high,
oohing and
aahing as the jets buzzed their building (I missed the best shots as they were moving so fast). Afterwards, we walked amongst the throngs that were still milling about the lakefront . . .
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| Sam, Jill, Erin, Bella and Derek |
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| The view of Lincoln Park, downtown Chicago and Diversey Harbor out Sam of Jill's apartment window |
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| The Blue Angels buzzing the city |
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| The Chicago skyline |
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| More of the Chicago skyline that I can't seem to get enough of (the haze is from the jets) |
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| Derek and Sam strolling along Lake Shore Drive |
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| Sam, me, Erin and Jill on the lakefront |
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| Erin and I strike a pose |
