Days 5 and 6: Chicago and Milwaukee

I visited Chicago last saturday. I spent most of the day wandering around half-lost. It was great (really). I drove into town around 11:30 and found a parking lot to park in. Then I started walking (taking my GPS with me) towards the Art Institute of Chicago. It should be noted here that it was freezing to me having come from Louisiana. It was only like 58, but still, I didn't even think to pack a jacket or long-sleeve anything so I was keeping my eyes peeled for a place to buy a jacket. Anyway. I went to the museum in the Art Institute and it was really nice. A lot of good art. I have pictures up on Facebook if you haven't already seen them.

After leaving the museum I went to Millennium Park which is right across the street from the Art Institute. In fact, there's a foot bridge from the second level of the museum to the park, but I couldn't find it while in the museum so I didn't walk across it. I did walk under it, though. Anyway, in Millennium Park there are some large great sculptures. I don't know if they change them out a lot or ever but I know this one has been there since 2006. It was created by Anish Kapoor and is titled Cloud Gate:


This is a concept drawing that is on display near the piece:





After wandering around Millennium Park a bit I wandered upon a Gospel Music and Art Festival. They were selling things in booths but what I went into the tent for was the open mic spectacular they were having on a stage in the middle. It was excellent. It was all I could do to not get up there and sing His Eye is on the Sparrow. At one point, however, this 5 or 6 year old white kid got up there and started singing. Now, understand me when I say he was white. I mean he was 100% white. And the audience was . . . um. . . not. But the host guy was all like "Show some love, show some love." And they did.

At this point I decided to not go to the Museum of Modern Art that I was going to go to. My reason was that I didn't want to walk that far but I probably did walk as much and more than I would have. No, instead, I decided to find a theater and see Land of the Lost. Before I did that, though, I happened upon another art festival where artists were selling their own work. I got to talk to a couple of them about their work and it was all very interesting. So, go on from there, still don't have a jacket. I stop in to a Starbucks and eat some luch and have some NASTY "sweet" tea. I find a mall. Not really a mall, more like a collection of expensive stores all centered around Nordstrom. I find nothing I can afford but now it's raining and I stay in out of the rain looking at clothes I cannot afford. When it lets up a little I wander out and I'm talking to Jacob on the phone and I'm looking for a store still. Then I look across the street and say, "Oh, look, a Gap." So I went to the Gap and found three sweaters and buy them.

I'm still looking for a theater. I've got my GPS with me, but it isn't as good with walking. Or maybe there was interference in the city. I walk countless blocks and get pretty far from the Gap, yet I somehow end up at the same intersection on the opposite corner from the Gap and the theater I was looking for is a block away. I go see Land of the Lost. I found it to be kinda funny but not really worth it. If you have to watch it then watch it when it comes on tv and you can't find the remote. It won't disappoint you but you shouldn't go out of your way to see it.

Then I went back to my car and drove to the hotel. Chicago is big. Here are some obligatory big building shots. This first one is looking towards Millennium Park and you can see the big face on the fountain. That's a video screen and it changes; blinks and stuff:



I went from Chicago to Milwaukee. Milwaukee is nice I guess. I ate at a greek place there. Greek food is different up north. They have gyros but not chicken shawarma. Instead they have chicken souvlaki which is basically chicken kabobs because it's cooked on a stick like that. It was good but my favorite part of my meal at Apollo Cafe was that they give you a bottle of grecian sauce (which they call cucumber sauce).

What I went to Milwaukee for was to go to the Milwaukee Museum of Art. Again I've posted pictures on Facebook from the museum of the artwork if you want to see it. What I want to share here is that the museum drinks Red Bull:

. . . because it gives you wiings . . .


I'd also like to share that I ran into one of my old teachers at the museum. I had this summer oil painting class with him. Apparently he grew up in Milwaukee and was back home to take care of some family stuff. After a minute or two he remembered me and I told him that I loved his class but I hated oil painting, which is true. I thought it was neat to run into someone like that in a completely different place.

I was also very thoroughly impressed and satisfied with the museum. If you haven't seen the pictures on Facebook that I took of the things there then I suggest you look at them because this museum has a very fine collection of great work both old and new.

After Milwaukee I went to Bloomington Minnesota where I stayed for 4 nights. The Mall of America is huge but I've already really covered that part of my journey. I didn't really do much except go to the mall. I did go spend a day in Minneapolis which is only about 20 minutes north of Bloomington. I went to some museums there and I will cover that in another post.

Right now I want to say that I have never been a follower of sports. This is evidenced by the fact that I scheduled an overnight stay in Omaha on the first day of the College World Series without any knowledge of it being the first day of the College World Series in Omaha. My plan was to go the the Henry-Doorly Zoo. Well, friday when I got there it was rainy and the zoo was closing at 5 anyway. Next morning I get up to go (a few minutes later than I'd planned) and try to go and sit in traffic only to find the zoo's parking lot is full of baseball fans. The stadium is right next to the zoo. I needed gas so I found a gas station. After filling up I decided to come on to Kansas City instead of finding a place to park and walking.

I'm in Kansas City now. I went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art earlier today and I've posted those pictures on Facebook already as well as some from Minneapolis and Bloomington. I will post more about these and other things later. I'll be home on monday.

UPDATE: You can now go to my Facebook page without a Facebook sign in by going to facebook.com/boogerface57. Go there to see more pictures from my trip under my albums.

Back in Time: Day 2, Ruby Falls and Rock City

When I was in Chattanooga I went to Ruby Falls and Rock city. I have pictures up on Facebook but if you haven't already seen them I'll put some of the highlights here.

These are from Ruby Falls in no particular order. We went down into Lookout Mountain in an elevator to the caverns that lead to Ruby Falls. They had different types of lighting to display certain rock formations:



This is called the Chandelier:



This is a very natural formation known as the Outlet:



When we reached the large chamber where the actual waterfall is the only thing that was lit was the entryway we'd come through. The waterfall was at the opposite end in complete darkness. There were speakers in the chamber which were playing very dramatic music and then the waterfall was revealed:


The waterfall is lit from beneath:


The opening where the water comes out is only about two to three feet wide:


And proof that I was there:


This is from the top of Lookout Mountain where you can supposedly see seven states. I don't know. . .


The rest of these are from Rock City (. . . we built this city . . .) which is basically a large collection of huge boulders. And I mean HUGE. Here are two:


This is a magical music-emitting rock. It should be noted here that the theme of Rock City is magic fairyland and gnomes and stuff like that. There is a Fairyland caverns portion of the park that has large dioramas of Hansel and Gretel and Jack and the beanstalk and stuff like that. In fact, after I snapped this picture a unicorn galloped by:




Fat Man Squeeze is the best name for anything ever:



Here's me going through Fat Man Squeeze:



Lover's Leap:


I also went to the Tennessee aquarium while in Chattanooga. It's really nice But it's also still an aquarium so if you want to see a more complete collection of pictures from there then check on Facebook as they are all posted there. But to make mention of a few things. . .

First is that the setup of the aquarium is interesting because it's split into two buildings, one for ocean and one for river. On top of that the landscaping (Is it landscaping if it's all concrete? Whatever.) is very interesting. You can see the wave form foot bridges in this picture with the aquarium buildings behind them:


On the other side of the foot bridges is this fountain:



which starts this river that runs between the two aquarium buildings, interrupting the cityscape in various ways as it goes:


I also took this picture of jellyfish which I love a lot. I usually cant get good jellyfish pictures:


Near the jellyfish in the aquarium were displays of jellyfish art by different artists. Some of my favorites:

I really want to post about things

but the internet here is flakey and I need to upload photos to be able to talk about stuff. I can say that I'm in Bloomington, MN where the Mall of America is. I can also say that the Mall of America is HUGE. I'm going to some museums in Minneapolis (about 20 minutes away) tomorrow. So Far I've been to Chattanooga, Mammoth Cave, Kalamazoo, Chicago, Milwaukee, and now Bloomington. I'll have a lot to report when I get dependable internet.

Day 3 - Cave City, Kentucky is a hole

I'll backtrack later and cover Day 2 in Chattanooga, in which I visited Ruby Falls and Rock City, because it was awesome. For now you can see pictures on Facebook, but I will eventually walk you through it. Right now I'd like to share with you the blogpost I wrote in a Word document while in Cave City, where the Mammoth Caves are:

Cave City, Kentucky is a hole.

There is nothing here except Mammoth Cave. I mean NOTHING. There’s not even any wi-fi anywhere. I’m writing this on Microsoft Word. I’m glad I’m only here for one night. The only thing worth it about staying the night here is that I’m sleeping in a wigwam.

My first tour of Mammoth Cave was less than spectacular after experiencing Ruby Falls and Rock City yesterday. For one thing, it’s way more touristy (who was expecting it not to be?). For another thing, I missed the 11:30 tour I wanted to go on by about 2 seconds. I arrived at 11:31 and they had already closed ticket sales for that tour. The difference between that one and the one I went on was probably a lot. I don’t know though. The one I missed was a 4 hour tour that encompassed 2 of the other tours. The one I went on was 2 hours. I don’t know what else I missed but I know I missed Fat Mans Misery. Oh well.

I did manage to salvage the day when I went back to the cave after checking in to my wigwam. I went on the Star Chamber tour, which happens at night. The Star Chamber is simply a chamber of the cave where gypsum, which was stained black by soot, has been chipped away in place to reveal the white gypsum underneath. It looks like stars kinda. But what was so cool about this tour was that it was a lantern tour, meaning that the only light source was from six oil lanterns.

What that also means is that there was no flash photography allowed. It’s a real shame, too because in the last leg of the tour we went to the Gothic . . . something, I don’t remember. The special thing about the Gothic Whatever is that, back in the day, tour guides would allow patrons to sign their names on the cave walls with candle wax in return for a tip. What was so amazing to me about this was that most of the lettering had serifs. This was the 1800’s and the people were mimicking printed type or signage lettering when they wrote their names and the type of the day had serifs.

Our tour guide was also very good and we had a small group so he took us a bit further down that passage than the “tour” permitted and we got to see other awesome things that I don’t have any pictures of. It was fun and now I’m going to sleep in my wigwam.

I do have a picture of the wigwam. It is still on my camera.

I also can't wait to tell you about the Ellery concert. It was so good. It's the only thing I've done in Kalamazoo, which is where I am now. It was a small intimate show. There were people coming and going and there were, at most, 30-40 people at the peak. Ellery is a husband and wife duo from Cincinnati. About an hour into the set they took a break and I was able to talk to them individually. Tasha was back by the table where they had cd's and other things for sale and she and I were talking and somehow it came up that I was in town from Baton Rouge and she was so happy that I'd planned it into my trip to go see them. After that, she told her husband, Justin, that I was here from Baton Rouge and he came and introduced himself to me and we spoke a little about travel and different things. They were both very nice and I was able to get a picture with them before I left. It was a very good night.

Those pictures and others will be comin atcha later. For now, I'm going to sleep. I'm driving to Chicago in the morning.

Chattanooga Day 1

I arrived in Chattanooga today. I was here for an hour before I realized that the time had changed and it's an hour later here. Anyway, here are some crappy pictures I took while I was driving in.

This really doesn't do justice to the beauty of this area. There are layers upon layers of hills covered in green and misty blue.



About 80 miles outside of Chattanooga I started seeing these signs for Ruby Falls and Rock City every couple of miles. I'm going to both tomorrow. As well as the Tennessee Aquarium probably.





I didn't really do anything tonight except check in to the hotel and go eat some supper. And I found the most artsy place to eat: Mojo Burrito. It's kinda like Izzos where you can build your own burrito but it was, I think, better. I got a burrito with their key lime chicken. So good.

They also display artwork by local artists. That's their thing.



I ate on their outdoor patio which looked like this:




More coming at you tomorrow.

U be trippin'

I'm leaving in the morning. First stop Chattanooga, a 9 hour drive according to my GPS, Jane (that's what I call her; she's british). My route can be seen here:

View Where I Am when I'm not with you in a larger map

At my second stop, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, I'm staying in a wigwam.

After that, I'm going to Kalamazoo solely to see Ellery in concert during the Kalamazoo Art Festival.

My longest stay anyplace will be in Bloomington, Minnesota where the Mall of America is. It's also just outside of Minneapolis. I'll be there from the 8th to the 12th.

I'm headed home after that, making stops in Omaha, Kansas City, and Memphis. I'll be updating while I'm on the road, so check back.

Graduation Stuff

I bought this:

as a graduation present for myself.

I'm picking up my degree tomorrow from the art office. I'm not walking.

I'm gathering artwork and design work to be displayed at my graduation party saturday. I'm also making a playlist for the party garnered towards "travel music," but not really.

I still plan on trippin' this summer. I still have not made concrete plans.

My last day of work at BR Press is sunday.

That's all for now.