Becoming Locals in Chi-Town

 Chicago, IL

Me and The California Station on The Blue Line

Getting Our Chicago Passes

Today we bought 30 day transit passes and we bought a membership to The Art Institute of Chicago.  We got the transit pass so we would be incentivized to use it. It will take 15 days to break even so we thought it was a good purchase.  We bought the museum pass because there is so much to see and we wanted to see it at our leisure.  It will only take 2 trips to break even on the museum pass and we got a free tote bag that says we are members so we got that going for us.

Our transit pass and our museum pass!

New Brewery

The passes weren't the first thing we did but it was the most important.  We started the day exploring our Logan Square neighborhood.  Our first stop was Pilot Project Brewing just down the street from us.  Pilot Project is an incubator brewery.  Multiple brewers brew and sell their own beers within the brewery.  The beers were good, the space was cool, and we got delicious nachos for lunch.

I did have Donna's Pickle Beer.  It was better than you would expect.  I would call it very good.

My Pickle Beer

Pickle Beer Merchandise 

Donna's phone can't handle backlighting.  We did get her a new phone today and once it is set up we will see if the camera is better.

Donna's beer with the nachos behind it.

After the brewery we walked over to the L Station and bought our passes.  We are looking forward to riding ALL THE TRANSIT here in Chicago.

Transit to The Museum

After buying our passes we walked back to the Airbnb and checked on Francis and then went to Target to pick up Donna's new phone.  When we got back we headed over to California Station and took The Blue Line downtown to buy our museum pass.  We arrived at the museum at around 3 and they close at 5.  There was a special area for us to purchase our membership.  We got to bypass the surprisingly long line to buy regular tickets with only 2 hours left.  I guess a lot of people do this because the museum map has a, "Only have an hour, here is what to see" page.

After our pass purchase we tested it out and it worked.  The museum was crowded so we just kind of took our time and tried to see a few things.  On days the museum is open the first hour is reserved for members so we will be taking advantage of that.  There is also a member cafe with free coffee and other things that we will take advantage of.

On our walk to the station we saw some cool street art

It's the 75th Anniversary of the CTA so they have commemorative cars.  This one is from the 60s to 80s era.

Triptych Window from the Coonley Playhouse, Riverside, Illinois - Frank Lloyd Wright

Apartment Entrance Gate - Frank Lloyd Wright (we saw some of the same type of Frank Lloyd Wright displays in St. Louis)

 Window from the Church of All Souls Evanston, Illinois - Marion Mahony Griffin

Circular Ventilator Grille from the Francis Apartments, Chicago - Frank Lloyd Wright (A grille from the same apartment building was at the St. Louis Museum)

Paris Street, Rainy Day - Gustave Caillebotte

A Sunday On The Grande Jatte - Georges Seurat 
This painting was really pulling them in.  We will see it during the member hour.

The Cafe for regular visitors (aka non-members) was cool

It was just a quick trip to the museum.  It was really crowded and we were already tired from a long day.  We will back multiple times.

If you missed Back to Chicago, For A Month! check it out.

Street Art in Pig Town

 Baltimore, MD

It's Fall so we had to plug in Francis's heated bed.

A Day Off

Today we took the day off, well I did.  I am not feeling 100% (spoiler, it's now tomorrow and I am feeling much better) so I sat on the couch while Donna made some great dishes with the food we bought yesterday.  I did take the opportunity to go for a walk to get some fresh air and take a photo of the Edgar Allen Poe mural we saw while driving in on the first day.  It's about a half a mile up the road we are staying on in an industrial warehouse area.  

Very Cool!  I didn't realize it is only a part of a bigger mural.

The bigger mural had cool details too

In addition to the cool tags.  I stared and tried to read them so I could give some credit but I just can't turn the cool shapes into actual letters.

When I first saw the mural I thought I would do a whole Poe post by visiting the mural, going to the grave, and then hitting up the Poe House Museum in a single day.  I took the opportunity to walk around and look at many murals while I was there and there were quite a few cool ones.  

There were a lot of Pig images for Pigtown I guess

The Tool Bank building looked to have quite a few commissioned murals and they weren't painted over which was nice.

I found an old cobblestone street (they are everywhere here) and disused tracks.

The Bmore Toolbank has a bunch of tools you can rent or you can become a member.  It also looks like it acts as storm management.

The rest of the day I rested up and we watched shows off of Peacock.  We don't have a subscription to them at the moment but you can watch the first episodes for free.  We are making a list of series we want to watch and then at some point we will get a sub and binge them.  We found a few series we want to watch already.  

That's it for today.  It was a day of rest and we even got a little thunderstorm for about a half an hour.  If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.

Walking In LA, Walking In LA

 Los Angeles, CA

Angelino Heights

Today we marked off a checklist item!  

We walked to and around Angelino Heights.  Angelino Heights is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles (according to Wikipedia).  It is known for its mixture of architecture.

Our walking route took us up and over The 101 Freeway (or US 101 if you aren't from SoCal).

Donna Walking Francis up to the overpass

Crossing the graffiti tagged overpass

One of the LA Walking Paths that isn't in traffic

We saw a lot of cool looking houses but it turns out we missed the heard of Angelino Heights.  We will talk the walk again later and get it right so we can see The Thriller House.

A cool looking bungalow with Giant Bird of Paradise

Great Use of Cactus

Speed Humps and Architecture

You can see Downtown LA in the background

Historic Filipino Town

Our walk home showcased the fact that we are in Historic Filipino Town.  There are many Filipino Restaurants in the area.

An Historic Filipino Town Banner

I liked this cool Giraffe Sign for a Deli

Another cool shuttered building

Filipino Town Placard 

We went to Sisig for lunch

Our Sisig (chicken livers and pork parts) with 
Java Rice

Filipino Chicharons 

This afternoon we went to Target Grocery because it is like a block away and we only needed a few ingredients for tomorrow night's meal.  It's a terrible place and you should never go!  Their selection was incredibly sparse and it was really expensive.  Never again!  (I didn't take any photos of this because I wasn't going to mention it but had to because it was so bad!)

Only 28 more days in LA!  We need to get going!  There is so much to do!  

Read all about our LA arrival yesterday here.