Chicago has been wonderful so far! I am staying with warm and fascinating friends of a friend in a historic building within the beautiful Hyde Park neighborhood. I spent all of yesterday with a dear friend exploring the Anderson Gardens and the Chicago Botanic Garden (which also contains a beautiful Japanese garden.) In between, we had another delicious meal at the newly relocated, all vegan Kitchen 17. (When I saw that they had a cheeseburger pizza, I was reminded of the wonderful offering at Rudy’s Pizza in Portland, so I knew that’s what we had to order!)
The weather has been predictably humid, but not as hot as I had feared. Last night we had a rain- and thunderstorm, so I am definitely getting my fill of those! The moisture in the air has actually been a welcome counterpoint to the aridness of Denver. The two gardens we visited were large and gave an all-encompassing feel. We weren’t able to cover the whole botanic garden, but the parts that we saw were absolutely wonderful, and the trees and open areas surrounding each separate garden gave a holistic magical feel to the whole place.
My mood is much improved. I have been able to catch up on some sleep, and I got wonderful news from Johnny: not only did his stressful situation get reversed, but almost exactly on the one-year anniversary of the garden’s first NBC news coverage (their first national coverage) he learned that NBC News will be filming a TV segment about the now-nearly-completed garden on September 27th!
The flow keeps flowing. I’m looking forward to visiting more parks and restaurants today (hopefully including a third Japanese garden, in nearby Jackson Park) and then making my way back to Union Station to board another new-to-me train, and head into Charlottesville!