Trees as frame and the cycling blues

During my recent trip back to Illinois, I naturally had to take another photo of one of my favorite spots in the park, which works well for showing how trees can lead the eye while creating a beautiful frame for a photo. In this photo, there aren’t a deer and a rabbit, but there are two birds. 🙂

If you’re in Chicago and want to get around without braving the traffic or spending a week’s wages on parking, you can rent one of these blue bicycles, my first entry for this month’s Life in Colour color. And speaking of cycling, anyone else watching the Tour de France? What a first week it’s been!

Urban

for One Word Sunday: urban

Pink Martini

One of our favorite groups is Pink Martini, a group that can do all types of music in all sorts of languages on all kinds of instruments and all superbly. I’ve been privileged to hear them more than once, this time with my husband in Chicago where they also brought along the Von Trapp grandchildren. It was marvelous and naturally the stage was lighted in bright pink.

for Life in Colour: pink and Squares: bright

Blob

for One Word Sunday: blob

WNDRful yellow

Just some of the interactive and dazzling fun at the WNDR Museum in Chicago. And of course for today it’s yellow. I’ll be out most of the day on an road trip, driving north to Flagstaff where I plan to meet a fellow blogger, Lisa at Micro of the Macro. In addition to meeting my first Arizona blogger in person, I’ll be getting to see snow, both of which have me excited. Will you find out more? Of course you will! But I won’t be around much today, so enjoy your day while I enjoy mine.

Lens-Artists Challenge #132 – Striped & Checked

Ann-Christine has set forth a challenge of stripes and/checks this week, so let’s go hunting. Or should I say let’s check it out? 🙂 Although we now live in Arizona, I’ve lived in the Midwest with four seasons all my life. So as odd as it seems to many people, I miss winter. So my stripes are from Illinois winters, while my checks are from downtown Chicago. Feel free to curl up with some hot chocolate or hot coffee or tea while viewing.

Snow with the remnants of irises.

From “my” park, a place I miss with a deep longing.

Our neighbors’ fence.

The big city. Not in winter.

Travel photo 1

These are challenging times and Su at Zimmerbitch has passed on a challenge to me: join her and other bloggers posting a travel photo a day for ten days. No explanation or back-story required, just an image.

Of course, challenges only get passed on if other people join in, but I, like Su, feel hesitant about asking people to join in. I’ll ask Ann-Christine if she’d like to participate, something to lighten the grey days in Sweden by escaping elsewhere. Also, she’s the one that asked me whether I was going to post more photos of The Bean in Chicago. So A-C, if you’d like to participate, we’d love to have you. If not, just enjoy my first photo.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #126: An Alphabet Challenge–Subjects That Begin with the Letter A.

Phew! Patti, I think you win the award for the looooongest title challenge to date, at least that I’ve seen.

I’m featuring photos from Illinois today and although I know most of you expect nature when you come here, what could be more iconicalyl Illinois than the Arcs and Arches of the Bean in Chicago? It’s a mind-bending Awesome Artistic beauty.

These Architectural features (and yes, you could say Arcs again) are found in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Let’s close with a two-fer: Animals in a nature Alley.

for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #126: An Alphabet Challenge–Subjects That Begin with the Letter A.

May I give you a hand?

for Six Word Saturday

Jo’s Monday Walk…the Windy City

Today you’ll be happy to be doing a virtual walk, as this walk was cold and windy, windy being a trademark of Chicago, and as I’m writing this, it’s also cold and windy. But you don’t even have to bundle up, whereas this poor lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago was wearing nothing but a wreath. (He’s even blue with cold!) The enormous line of people waiting were bundled up a lot more.

We’ve seen part of the weaving exhibit at the musuem, but today we’re going to venture around the environs of the museum, heading toward The Bean, more formally known as Cloud Gate, in Millennium Park. But first let’s take a look at Crown Fountain, where the faces change regularly in all seasons, but no water comes out in winter. Wonder why? 🙂