I was there for a good chunk of my adult life, and so was my husband. He went to school downtown Chicago, then moved to Evanston. And I worked downtown Chicago, too. After I had my first child, I thought of moving further out- mostly because of safety issue, plus the housing market at the time was pretty good. We decided to move out to Plainfield (which we had never even passed through before!) for these reasons, knowing full well what a big change it would be for all of us.
We don't regret the decision, but there are some things we miss about the city. Great old movie theaters (like the Music Box. I LOVED that one. And the old McClurg Court theater that closed up), really cool video stores, art galleries, & museums- but what we really, really miss are the restaurants. In Evanston, we were 8 minutes away from ANY kind of restaurant you could think of. Brazilian, Afghan, German, French, Polynesian, Thai, fondue, tappas, fusion- you name it. And today we decided to let the kids experience the Adler Planetarium, plus a Chicago landmark- Gino's East. I know it's totally touristy, but the kids had to experience Chicago and some of the best pizza on the planet. They're old enough to have a little easier time absorbing it.
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| Inside of Gino's East. It's not considered graphitti if it's encouraged by the management... |
Dinner was SO good. The appetizer platter was excellent. The kids had some thin crust cheese pizza, and we had the deep dish. It took them a couple tries to get out order right, but is was worth it! Even my son admitted that the deep dish was the best pizza he ever had!
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| For all you Star Trek fans out there- "NO KILL I" |
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| My entire manifesto didn't fit above the table, but I got my message across. |
We originally wanted to go to the Shedd Aquarium, but it was free admission week and the line was 3 HOURS LONG. We simply couldn't wait that long, so we just scooted on over to the planetarium instead. It was more expensive, but a wise choice. Besides, we saw a dead fish on the walk over from the Shedd Aquarium, so that was kinda the same thing...
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| It may look abandoned and post-apocolyptic, but I assure you that people were inside. |
My husband kept acting disappointed that they didn't have Buzz Aldrin stuffed and mounted in the front entrance to the planetarium.
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| Why is Copernicus holding a steampunk Wii controller? |
There were lots of kids activities inside, with simulated spaceship controls and such. This one just looked funny.
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| Talk to the rocket?? Just try and stop me! |
One thing that we should have taken a picture of was a bizarre play area that consisted of a big box of kitty litter that kids can play in, and a pile of plastic vegetables that was next to it. I'm not sure exactly what was the point of that. But, my kids had fun throwing the vegetables in the kitty litter. That last sentence was rather odd, now that I read it again...
AUTHOR'S NOTE- I just added this picture because it is just...insane. The Shedd Aquarium actually PAID for this monstrosity. LOOK AT THIS THING! It's a creepy 20 foot guy hugging a fish!!! Psychologists could have a field day with this thing!!!
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| This is without a doubt THE most demented fountain I have ever seen. |
A little astrophysics, a little pizza and a walk downtown made for a great day for everyone. I highly recommend it. We didn't get to do everything we wanted, but we can save it for the next trip. I have SO much more planned, including an excursion to my favorite art supply store in the universe- Utrecht's. Mmmmmm....
Oh, I should mention that we are getting our prints up for sale on Etsy tonight. We are going to have 2 different kinds- one on art paper, the other on professional photo paper. Should be up later tonight. We also had our website altered to include a link to our Etsy shop on the "paintings" portion of the site. Check it out, if you dare.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/75434894/knitting-up-a-storm
http://www.crowsfeetstudios.com/paintings7.htm#
Okay, I gotta go. Go read a book for Pete's sake.
- Christine
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