My nephew J.P. and his daughter, Jessica, comes for a visit

J.P. works for a mall company.  He came to Chicago for a grand opening of a new mall.  It was wonderful to be able to spend some time with them.  We saw them two years ago when we took our West Coast trip.

We had dinner at Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill.  This place is to Chicago as Lady & Sons is to Savannah.  The lines form immediately when the place opens.  Ed and I were not impressed.  Also, you will notice from the pictures that I have bruises on my face.  I fell last Wednesday.  This was the first day I appeared in public since the fall.

Garfield Park

 So This place was created around 1908 by a landscape architect named Jens Jensen who designed most of the Chicago parks.  In the realm of landscape architecture, he is a god.

In front of the Conservatory.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

This is a copy of Monet's garden at Giverny.


I think there must have been a competition as to what city could have the largest glass house.  These here are pretty big!



Chihuly was here (remember that glass blower from Tacoma, WA?)  Those water lilies are glass.

It's a beautiful facility, but the neighborhood is very bad.  I heard a guy on the radio say he had a $400,000 mortgage in 2007 in Garfield Park and after the bust, the house next door to him sold for $20,000 so he quit paying his mortgage two years ago and since then he's never heard from the bank.  The gurus on the radio were trying to figure that one out and decided the bank was glad he was at least living in the neighborhood and keeping his house up.

Too bad.  We got out of that neighborhood fast.

Chicago Contemporary Art Museum

On Tuesdays, there's a farmers' market on the street in front of the museum and people buy their lunches and eat on the steps of the museum.  It's in a very central part of the city.

What is contemporary art?  Well this artist pulled up the wall-to-wall carpeting in one part of his house and tacked it to the wall.  Now it's a piece of art!

This is a Puerto Rican artist who recreated his mother's nail salon as a work of art.

Plaster of paris lovers.

The staircase.

Sculptures in the sculpture garden.  There's a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the museum.  Just casual.

It's a small sculpture garden.

This is in front of the museum.

A Trip to Hyde Park, The University of Chicago

This is the Robie House, perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous creation.  It's on the site of the University of Chicago which was completely funded by John D. Rockefeller (who knew?).  Not me.


Right down the street is the Rockefeller Chapel (which is quite a grand chapel).  It more like a very large church.


This building houses the world's largest carillon (bells). 


How about this organ????

The Chagall mural in the Chase Bank Plaza.

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me...........................

If you've never heard of Wait Wait Don't Tell me, it's an NPR Saturday morning radio show that is based in Chicago @ the Chase Bank Building auditorium.  I really like this show, so one of my goals when we came to Chicago was to see a taping of the show.  They tape on Thursday night from 7:30 to 9:30.  To get tickets, you're supposed to call six week ahead, etc., etc., which we didn't do.  We just walked up there at 6 p.m. and got tickets that were turned back in.  It was really, really hot and maybe people just decided not to come to Chicago on such a hot day.

This was the panel:  Charlie Pierce, Faith Sallie and Alonzo Bourdan.

This is Carl Kassel and Peter Sagal.

This is us before the show.

This is the Chase Bank Building.

Of course, there's always a meal involved.  This is (supposedly) the oldest restaurant in Chicago.  It's German.

This is a shot of the Ferris Wheel we were on.

The Architectural Boat Tour & the Amusement Park on Navy Pier

Boarding the boat.

All of these buildings are famous, however, I can't explain them.


The bridges are modeled after Parisian bridges.


This water spout is a new thing.  It goes off on the hour.


On the Ferris Wheel.



Julia had three holes in one!