Does He Still Shit In His Pants?: Dec 3, 2019 A Day Spent With My Family

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Dec 3, 2019 A Day Spent With My Family

The only day Christy and I have off together now is Tuesday. So we have a plan to spend the day in Chicago. I got up early to take our kids for a hike at Wampum Lake. That's our little girl Nola enjoying the cooler weather.

It's a gray day and the lake is calm...so all we hear is the traffic on I-80 and a few birds chirping and geese honking.

Yeti & Nola love walking along the edge of the forest. There is so much to smell.

A rare occasion when Yeti poses for me.

Nola has posed more easily for me in her old age.

I dropped off the dogs and picked up Chrissy. We decided to have lunch here at the White Palace Grill. I have wanted to eat here since I first drove by here in the 1980's. Back then Roosevelt & Canal wasn't the best of neighborhoods. There were a lot of small locally owned clothing stores in this area but it was declining quickly as most of the buildings were way past their prime. In the last 15 years, almost everything has been torn down and rebuilt except this diner. Now the area is booming with tons of boring corporate stores. Besides Binny's liquor store and Manny's Deli, the White Palace Grill is the only place I would visit here.

As you can see the gray clouds are gone and it's a beautiful day in Chicago.

I enjoyed my all day breakfast choice of pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage.

The diner has no parking so we had to pay to park at the mall next to it. It has a great view of the train yard just south of Union Station. There were two Amtrak Skyliners in the yard. My father built those cars at the Pullman Plant in Hammond back in the late 70's.

Since we are going to a night market later today at Lincoln Park Zoo, we parked here now and walked down Clark to the subway.

We passed this sign on the southern end of Lincoln Park that lists all the talking statues in the city parks. They don't actually talk, you use your phone to hear them talk.

I love street art and always try to photograph them.

Don't let the smile fool you.

We ended up at the Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza.

I think all we bought was a pretzel.

There isn't much here for sale that either of us got excited about. We headed back to Lincoln Park.

But this time we walked up LaSalle and passed lots of great house on the edge of Old Town.

We still have a couple of hours to kill before the LPZ event. So we stopped at another place I've wanted to visit for years. I'm a huge history dork.

I was excited to see a Torrence Ave sign (it's our exit on I-80) among the city street signs.

Hey, I fix gas pumps for a living. Of course I took a picture of this sign.

The first exhibit was an old train car. I love this place already.

I love old trains...

...and old ladies on trains.

This was part of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The city's first trains went from downtown to the South Side for the Exposition.

Another great exhibit was about the Union Stock Yard.

I thought this was a great quote and appropriate for today's issues.

The Jazz and Blues exhibit was pretty cool.

A Carousel Horse from Riverview Amusement Park

The Grant Statue in Lincoln Park and yes, there is a Lincoln Statue in Grant Park.

We walked across Lincoln Park on our way to the zoo.

LPZ has it's Night Market tonight and the zoo lights will be available most nights through January 5th. Check their website because some nights they are closed.

I wandered around taking pictures while Chrssy shopped at a few places.

This area had lights dancing to the music playing. It was pretty cool to see. I walked by this several times.

Some of the buildings had vendors in them but most of the animal exhibits had the lights off and sleeping animals.

More fun with the dancing lights.

OK, if you are my age then a cow at Lincoln Park Zoo will make you laugh. Back in the 1980's, some guy got caught having sex with a cow in the LPZ dairy barn. The story probably would have been forgotten by now except the Loop's Morning Disc Jockey Jonathon Brandmeier recorded The Moo-Moo Song. In case you are wondering, I do have this 45.