Oh, it's that time ...

[veronica_rich]

Winter is on the way and I am feeling peckish and pissed. I hate cold weather. I live in the South where it rarely snows and I STILL hate cold weather - higher heating bills, less sunlight (which has a bad effect on me), dead things outside. Ugh. I would take the sultriest, nastiest, hottest day of August over January.

Having been inspired of late by a desire to hang on to better weather and mood, and by seeing "Elizabethtown," I decided to fill some entries with old road-trip photos. While these probably won't be particularly dial-up friendly, they're not huge, so you just need to be patient and wait a couple of minutes for them to open, I suspect.



Now I don't claim to be a world-class photographer. I'm competent and I'm occasionally paid for it, and that's about the extent of it.




This is how Chicago looks from several miles outside the city limits, from the Metra train. Marvel at mah mad photo skilz!




Sort of an artsy angle on the House of Blues (blue sign) in Chicago, taken several years ago, sometime in the late 1990s. True story: a_silver_rose and I wanted to go in and see the place, but we couldn't find a door to get inside, anywhere on the front of the building. We didn't feel like walking around to the back, so we never did go in. (Now I know somewhere in here there's a lesson to be learned along the lines of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it," regarding not being able to get inside, but whatever. We're just not very bright, savvy?)







Everyone recognizes a Hard Rock Cafe guitar. The Beatles were life-size plaster statues enclosed in glass in the center of the McDonald's just across the street from Hard Rock, from their Abbey Road pose. I think at the time in the rest of the free world, a Quarter Pounder value meal was about $3.50, but in Chicago, it was closer to $6. For that, I rather expect the real Beatles to stand in the center of McDonald's, in shifts, but I'm a cheapskate.







In 1993, on Easter weekend, I went by train to Chicago to see "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour," starring these two unknowns and a few others named Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, and Colm Meaney, with orchestra directed by some guy named Andre Previn. Obviously they were all struggling so hard to be noticed by Hollywood, perhaps in hopes of being picked up for their own TV series, that in desperation, they rented out the Chicago Theatre for a couple of days to stage their own production to attract a casting or talent scout.




This is what the Chicago River downtown looks like in February. DO NOT GO TO CHICAGO IN THE WINTER WITHOUT A COAT AND GLOVES. AND EARMUFFS. EARMUFFS ARE GOOD. EARMUFFS ARE MANNA FROM HEAVEN. THIS GOES FOR THE WHOLE MIDWEST, DAMMIT.




We'll close with one of my shots out the top of the Sears Tower. I actually took a shot of all four cardinal directions out the windows, but you don't really want to see all four. I've been to the top three times and once, a_silver_rose and I witnessed a guy asking his girlfriend to marry him. (If she'd said "No," I have to tell you that elevator ride back down is awfully looooooooooong.)

Comments

[herm42.livejournal.com]

Awesome idea! I have a bazillion pics from my once ever mega-roadtrip. maybe I shall post a few. they're not as nice as yours though. :)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I think everyone should post road-trip photos. In fact, I think I'll call for that very thing in my next round of picture-posting ....