Chicago Style

Billy and I made a day trip in to Chicago this past week mainly to go to the art museum. After having been to most all of the major museums in the country The Art Institute is probably my favorite one to spend time at. They have such a fabulous collection of paintings there. The place is so enormous I think it would take weeks to really take it all in.

We drove in and went straight away to the museum and spent most of the day in the newly remodeled Impressionist wing. I think it was the Degas works that really grabbed me this visit. His use of color was so amazing.

In the American section they have several O'Keeffe pieces including one of my absolute favorites...



This Black Cross piece reminds me so much of New Mexico... especially the hills out in Chimayo and the gorgeous New Mexican sunsets.

Sometimes the people watching at the museum can be almost as good as the artwork. I wish I had the guts to just blaze away blatantly taking shots of people and their kooky outfits. I grabbed this shot of a guy looking at this huge Seurat. He must have been almost 7 feet tall and dressed completely in black it was quite a sight. He looks like one of those cartoon character holes in the wall where they have busted through on a mad dash for escape. Except he is much more calm obviously.... not trying to escape.



Billy had never had legit Chicago style pizza so we decided to walk up to Gino's East so he could see what that is all about. They do it right at Gino's. It had been close to 20 years since I had been to there but it was still just as good and the atmosphere of the place is always cool. Here's Billy doing his slightly more chipper Godfather impersonation in our booth....



Clearly Billy does not have as much heavy stuff to worry about as The Don. Lucky for him.

It was an odd February day in that it was in the 60's. The ice in the river had broken up and we did not even have to wear heavy coats to walk the city. It was awesome.




On our way back down Michigan Ave we stopped off in The Millennium Park to take a few shots of The Cloud Gate. You HAVE to get your picture taken at The Cloud Gate. So here we are at The Big Bean....





Since we had left the burden of Rudy at home with my parents for the day we did not stay in the city very late... just past sunset. These are a few cool shots I grabbed in the last light of the day.





That American Gothic scene is down near The Tribune. It's probably about 30 feet tall set up just to the north of the river.

When we got home Rudy was working the scene where my Dad had cooked steaks for dinner. We let him have a few left over bites mixed in with his regular food. He's such a scoundrel. It was a relief to find that he had not performed any disastrous feats while we were away for the day. Because Disaster is his middle name.