More Chicago Fun

 Chicago, IL

We are the proud owners of a new baguette!

Logan Square Farmers Market and Swap Meet

We spent Friday and Saturday waiting for an important package to arrive so we decided to really hit the town today.  We started out by walking to The Logan Square Farmers Market.  On the way we discovered that locals take the opportunity to set up a swap meet as well.  I'm not sure if it is sanctioned because I can't find anything online about it but it is well organized when you see it.

The Swap Meet was hopping and there was a wide variety of things you could buy.

More vintage shirts than you could shake a stick at!  I tried and my stick shaking arm gave out about half way through.

The Farmers market had a nice selection of micro greens.

I guess these are macro greens.

We walked the market and decided we were a little hungry.  There was a long line for a place that sells bread but the actual brick and mortar place was just across the street so we went there instead.  We split a chocolate croissant and bought a baguette.   On our return trip through the market we picked up some eggs, strawberries, and Salami to have for lunch when we got back to the house.

Hitting a New Brewery

After having a little lunch we walked to a nearby brewery we hadn't been to yet.  Revolution Brewing is across the street from the California Blue Line Station that we frequent.  I had wanted to go there and today seemed like the perfect day.

They had a large tap list and a whole bunch of canned beers available.

There are a few taps I would like to try at $2 off so we will be back during happy hour at some point.

I chose a vintage (2020) Ryewine.  It tasted just like a Barleywine to me which is one of my favorite styles of beer.

Scouting the Bloomingdale Trail

From the Blue Line you can see an elevated walkway with joggers, walkers, cyclists, and other people enjoying a place to be without fear of being hit by a car.  It's called The Bloomingdale Trail and was a disused Chicago and Pacific Railroad track converted into an elevated walkway.  We took the Blue Line 1 stop and got off and found the ramp to the trail and walked it for a bit.  The plan is to come back with our rollerblades but first we wanted to make sure that plan made sense.

This is the Western Station.  It has a really cool Art Deco entrance.

We found the trail!

It was busy on a Sunday.  We are hoping a weekday will give us more space to skate.

After scouting the trail successfully I sensed we were close to a bar where I wanted to play pinball.  I mentioned it and Donna said let's go so we headed over to Green Eye Lounge.  It was a very short walk from where we were.  They have 2 machines there.

Nice Art Deco elements on the bar and a great sticker collection on the reefer.

Cheers!

We even got to watch Twins for a bit.

Killing Time Until The Main Event

At this point it was about 2pm and we had plans to attend a function at 5:15 so we decided to head in the general direction of the function and find some stuff to do.  We had been in the area before so we knew we liked Dovetail Brewing and Replay Arcade so we took a The Blue Line to The Brown Line and walked to Dovetail and then took The Brown Line back down to Replay Arcade.

We missed Grodziskie Day

We both got small beers and their sausage.  It's a really good meat stick!

Back to see Peter Venkman

 Back to The L to head to the main event

Chicago Pride and Dancing Queen

Soon it was time to head to the main event, Dancing Queen preforming at Chicago Pride.  Dancing Queen, as you might have guessed, is an ABBA Cover Band.  Donna read about them in the paper and we wanted to go.  

We took The L and got off but just missed our bus so we did the rest of the trip on foot.  We saw a lot of cool things.

As we got closer to the event the scenery got more and more fabulous.

The concert was well attended

After listening to Dancing Queen for about an hour it was time to head back and check on Francis.  Our trip home took us on The Red Line, a line we haven't been on yet.  It was a fun and action packed day.  It made up for waiting on mail the prior two days.

If you missed Learning Some History and Having a Sausage and Beer you can find it via the link.

Cincinnati Union Terminal

 Cincinnati, OH

Exploring The Ice Age at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History and Science

Cincinnati Museum Center

Today we went to Union Terminal to visit it and The Cincinnati Museum Center.  Union Terminal is a registered historic place that services Amtrak 6 days a week in the middle of the night and houses multiple museums.  We bought tickets for $25 each and they include The Cincinnati History Museum, The Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, and The Children's Museum.  

They have done a great job restoring Union Terminal.  It's the best part of the whole thing in my opinion and you can go in and walk around for free.  The Natural History Museum was pretty good but the Cincinnati History Museum was mostly just a model train and a miniature version of Cincinnati.  There were some cool things but it wasn't the strongest history museum in my opinion.  We didn't visit the Children's museum as we are adults.

Some Amazing Art Deco going on here

 

Check out this lobby outside of the rest rooms!

Some great neon

The Amtrak part of the station is open from midnight to 4am.

The Cincinnati History Museum

More neon

There was a trolley with video screens for windows.  It was exactly like The Hogwarts Express at Islands of Adventure (no not really)

E-Scooter or E-Bike?  Choose wisely

Here is a better shot of those screens.  This trolley was inundated by children on a fieldtrip so I couldn't get many shots.

Even con artists get things into museums at times.  They forgot to mention that this thing was only introduced to create doubt for high speed rail.  It was never intended to be real transit.  Elon makes cars and doesn't want competition.

The Cincinnati Natural History and Science Museum

Check out how HOT we are!

Donna blowing smoke rings

I saw this and thought, "I can imagine moving every month!"

We descended into the Space area (up and down are relative)

Donna makes moon craters

I liked the carpet in this room

The museum had a cool Ice Age area.  It felt like a queue for a ride.

The Cave area was cool too.  There was a place were you could measure if you were "small" enough to explore the critical path of the cave.  I was good to go!

More Art Deco elements on our way out

That was it for today.  We might go back to Union Terminal to visit the cool ice cream shop that is only open on the weekends.  Also we might not.  Who knows?

If you missed Walking Cincinnati check it out here.