Deer Grove!

I took a day off today to do several things in Palatine. The only thing I was not able to schedule was a meeting with my old neighbor – out schedules didn’t match. All the rest went great. As previously, I took UP-N Metra to Clyborn, and switched to NP-NW to go to Palatine. One of my Palatine friends picked me up, and we went for a walk at Deer Grove. Everything looks like the-end-of-summer, but I was really happy to walk the same path I used to walk and to see the prairie. Then we sat and chatted in her house, and she took me to my last implant check (finally done with that!). From there, I walked to my hair stylist appointment, and from there, my other friend picked me up and we had a long late lunch and talked about a million things.

It was so good to be together with the people I love and miss, and it was great to reunite with the prairie, if even for a short time!

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Friday Off

I had to work for the past two “Wellness Fridays” for half-day, and today, I took a Friday off to compensate for these two halves. It was the only day off I took during Boris’ visit, and we had plans.

The first and the most important thing we did – we went kayaking! There are many kayaking opportunities in Chicago, and I knew that Boris wanted to try it. However, I was more than scared to try, and the reason I finally gave in was the offer from the Shedd Aquarium: they run “Kayaking for conservation” tours, where they show the conservation and restoration efforts on the Chicago RIver. I chose a tour “for people with no experience” and signed us up.

Boris really enjoyed it. As for me, I am happy that I overcame my fears, although it was not easy. Perhaps if I would practice more, I would start to enjoy it. Today it was mostly “I made it!”

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Chicago Adventures With Lena

Yesterday, my friend Lena from Ann Arbor came to visit me for the weekend, and today was a blast! Not even mentioning how much I enjoy Lena’s company, what a fun person she is, but we did tons of cool things together.

We started the day with the Millennium Art Fair on Michigan Avenue, where I bought two rings with flowers inside, and Lena bought a pair of earrings with butterfly wings (they explained to us that they collect the wings from dead butterflies).

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Smells Can’t Be Captured

Since early May, I meant to blog about the smells which follow me on my bike rides in Chicago, how the lilacs were heavenly, and how now they are gone and everything smells with linden. In Helsinki, lilacs were still in bloom when I arrived, but in the past two days they were almost gone and the strong smell of jasmine started to dominate. It’s one of my childhood smells, strongly associated with July. That’s how the second session of the pioneer camp smelled :).

California In Bloom

The Computer History Museum took a good part of our second day. In the afternoon, we went for a tour of Lady Winchester Mansion. I saw it previously, and I wanted Boris to see it. I think the tour last time was better, more detailed, more history.

This time, they had smaller groups of visitors (still COVID restrictions) but they were letting the groups in every five minutes, and the tour guides were a little bit in a rush 🙂

I didn’t take any pictures this time, because I photographed almost everything in this house on the previous tour.

I still had some time before dinner and departure, and I decided to take a quick walk around the neighborhood. As quick as it was, I really enjoyed the beautiful nature and all its “unlikeness” to what I can in Illinois.

Overall, I think I feel California better now than after my previous multiple trips, so I guess it’s good to visit while you are not attending a conference 🙂

Monterey

While I have some breathing room, here are more California pictures. When we finally arrived in Monterey, it was an afternoon already, and not even an early afternoon :). Did I say it already, how I completely forgot about traveling by car and traffic jams? Saying it again!

We had a late lunch/early dinner, and then we took a long walk along the ocean coast. The ocean is beautiful! So beautiful, it does not seem real! Not like I would trade living by lake Michigan for living by the Pacific :).

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California Trip

We are visiting my friend in Campbell CA – I decided that I do not need to have an excuse of a conference to visit her, so I exchanged the tickets for San Francisco one more time and added Boris to that trip.

Yesterday we were on the go for the whole day: we visited the Rose Garden, the St. Juan Bautista mission, and Monterey, and I have a million pictures 🙂

As usual, not sure whether I will have time to write in detail about all of it, but here are some:

More to come!

Partial Moon Eclipse

Tonight was the longest partial moon eclipse in over 500 years; at least, that’s what I read the day before. Chicago Tribune was saying that it would be very easy to observe, and since it was three-and-a-half hours long, I had chances to see some of it.

The eclipse was supposed to end at 4-45 AM, so I made a point to get up at 3-45, and at 4 AM, I was out on the street. First, I thought I would see it from my balcony, but this didn’t work. However, when I came down to the street, I saw it right away!

It was enchanting, and although I could not capture the actual thing on my camera, I am very glad that I woke up an hour earlier than usual. The sight was worth it!

In Milwaukee With Anna & Family

I spent most of the last weekend with Anna & family in Milwaukee. There was no special occasion, not big plans – we just wanted to get together.

Also, after a long wait and anticipation, I was finally able to take Amtrak to Milwaukee. It’s tons better than it used to be taking the Van Galder bus to Madison! The ride is about 1.5 hours and very comfortable, with WiFi and electric plugs by every seat 🙂

The thing I enjoyed most was the water quality monitoring. Anna is involved with the Milwaukee Riverkeeper project, and she asked me whether I would like to go with her and Nadia to do the measurements.

It was so interesting! She has a whole case of scientific instruments and chemical reagents and the instruction book from the program. The monitoring includes measuring the water temperature, transparency, oxygen level, and more.

I enjoyed this experience on many levels: 1) it is super cool that volunteers can participate in a real scientific project, 2) it is so important for the environment 3) I enjoyed doing something important together with Anna and Nadia 4) I was in a forest preserve, which I really miss!

I need to figure out how to get out to nature even when I am in the city!