All aboard for architectural history

With limited time in the city, we elected to take an architectural history cruise on the Chicago river first thing in the morning. It was an excellent choice as the sun was shining and we learned a lot about Chicago on the cruise. However, I had a crick in my neck for the next couple of days from looking skyward for over 90 minutes!

The first building is the Trump Tower. If you watched season 1 of 'The Apprentice' you'll recognize it as the project assigned to the winner of the reality show. Despite any misgivings about Donald Trump, it is a gorgeous building. I forget the names of the round buildings but they were certainly unique. It was an interesting design as the cars are parked on the lower floors and the apartments are up above. The final building is the Chicago Merchandise Mart. Although it is not as tall as most of the skyscrapers, it was building with the most square feet of floor space in the world until the Pentagon was completed.

We wrapped things up with a short stroll on the "Magnificent Mile" which is Chicago's shopping district. We took the Blue "L" line from our hotel to O'Hare airport. It worked great! Only $2.50 and we were at the terminal.

Millennium and Grant parks

We hoped to visit a museum in Chicago but by the time we dropped off the car and found the hotel, we were too late. Instead, we opted to explore two of Chicago's downtown parks. Millennium Park officially opened in 2004. Its more noticeable attractions are outdoor sculptures. Here you see the famous 'coffee bean'. We enjoyed looking at it from all angles. Notice how the skyline is reflected in the first photo. The second photo is a picture of our reflection on the underside of the "bean".

We also wanted to see Grant Park where Barack Obama gave his victory speech in November 2008. My favorite part of this park was Buckingham Fountain. It's much larger than it appears in the photo. All-in-all a nice evening.

It's fall in Wisconsin

Last Saturday found us at the farmer's market again, but not our regular one. We spent a long weekend in Wisconsin visiting Mr. Snootypurse's family. Mr. Snootypurse's sister has been a small-scale organic farmer in Wisconsin long before it was "cool". The Madison farmer's market is larger than our local one and we noticed a plethora of cheese and bakery booths in addition to the veggies. Unfortunately local zoning regulations restrict the use of propane so Mr. Purse had to go without his Saturday morning sausage.

We weren't the official trip photographer so we are missing pictures for a couple of days. On our drive to Chicago, we stopped at Lake Geneva. It's a cute resort community on a lake with some nice fall color in the background. The temperatures were much warmer than the preceding days and we savored the sunshine. I was happy to find a Caribou coffee shop so I could endulge my latest addiction: a mocha with half dark/half milk chocolate. When will they open in Portland?