Chicago, Chicago....more images

The Bean (Cloud Gate, Anish Kapoor) is just so neat that I took lots of photos of it. Taking pictures underneath is especially neat! In Millennium park this is a fountain with faces that change, eyes open and close, and periodically "spits" water out of the mouths onto the people waiting below. The old band shell is gone, the new band shell is called Pritzker Pavillion and the cross over structure is a sound system. It's great looking and the sound is all around you.

There's a big red Alexander Calder sculpture in a plaza, and a BIG sculpture of the Grant Wood couple (from the painting American Gothic) in another plaza. See tiny me? The photo of the elevated train station is for my nostalgia trip. How many times I went up and down stairs like these while growing up and while working in the city. When I wore high thin heeled shoes, these steps were treacheous! They were well known for their ability to catch and break off a heel. And in Chicago ART IS REAL for sure, it's all around.

Our short trip to DC

Our cousin was in DC for a conference and invited us to join her for a couple days after it was over. We stayed in the Omni Shoreham and had a nice view of the pool. Here's how it looked on the first night we were there when there was an amazing rain storm, with thunder and lightening. A light show! We went to the National Museum of art, where this Calder mobile is installed. We saw, for the third time, the Martin Puryear show. I think we're official groupies now. Another wonderful show, which made us sad, though happy that we got to see it, was the treasures from the Kabul museum. Not much left of the treasures, or Kabul, I think. Brave curators managed to save some of the items that were in the museum. We're standing in front of the big poster advertising the treasures. Later in the day, we stopped at Teaism for some, of course, TEA! The boxes they keep the tea in are so beautiful. Afterwards, we went to the Phillips Gallery to see a show of work by Richard Diebenkorn, photographs by Brett Weston and work by Jacob Lawrence. What a wonderful day of art. And as we left the city the next day, heading home, we passed the Washington monument. I was able to capture this image with my cell phone. It was a short visit, but filled with art. We were energized by it.