It's My Birthday, I Can Blog If I Want To
Greetings from the Windy City! I officially turned almost old today (old is next year), and to mark the occasion we decided to visit somewhere I'd never been, Chicago. One of the fun parts of having a summer birthday is that you never have to worry about snow ruining your plans. Heat indexes are a different story, decided this year was the year to be somewhere where the 'feels like' isn't flirting with the century mark.
Chicago delivered in that regard, never even got out of the mid-80s today, coolest birthday I've ever had. The city is the third most populous in the country, and the largest city I've ever been to, so some exploring was called for.
Was definitely something to see, more skyscrapers than you could shake a stick at, and a whole mess of people out and about, people-ing. Prime street photography territory.
Wouldn't hardly be right to visit Chicago and not make a pilgrimage to the Haymarket Square. Got to explore a bit of the Riverwalk as we made our way there.
A sculpture stood there in the square, a memorial marking the spot the speaker's wagon had been on that fateful day in 1886. Although we make take the eight hour workday for granted now, that wasn't always the case. If you trace back how that came to pass, it leads you here.
After paying our respects we headed for Lake Michigan. Or at least some sort of bean thing near the lake.
Kept getting distracted by all the architecture, so many neat buildings and fun reflections.
The clouds and occasional rain made things interesting, but at this point that just seems a part of me traveling anywhere.
Think they call this the omphalos. We found the bean and it was shiny! It was definitely the kind of art to put you in a reflective mood.
The Bean wasn't the only art like that, Millennium Park had some other interesting sights to behold as well.
Since we hadn't quite walked enough to get blisters yet, it seemed only appropriate to finish up the day's wandering with a visit to Navy Pier. I'm about to finish up this day with some sleep, but for getting older I couldn't have asked for a better day. Got more exploring to do tomorrow, catch y'all later.
A very nice place for you to celebrate your birthday,these skyscrapers are truly amazing my friend.
It was the best, thank you! There were so many skyscrapers, don't think I came close to seeing half of them.
Congratulations on your ATH @coloneljethro !😅
What a great view that you gave us of Chicago. I've never been in America. So, for me, all cities are so different between them, and each one has great things to offer for the visitors.
Age is just a number, like you said. Keep it young in your heart. That is what truly matters!
Cheers
Thank you!
Ha, even living here the cities are all so different, but Chicago was on another level. I've been to what I've thought of as 'big' cities but Chicago put them to shame, just so much to it. Already plotting my return :D
Cheers, and thanks!
Happy almost old birthday!! Great shots!
Thank you! You ever make it to this side of the Mississippi?
Congratulations!
Cool skyscrapers and the shot of the picture of the face with the reflection is also very nice!
Thanks!
So many skyscrapers :) More than I'd ever seen before. That thing with the face was so interesting, still not sure exactly what was going on there.
Beautiful place with solid architecture, I'm sure you had a blast. Happy birthday!
So much glorious architecture, it was definitely a blast :) Thank you!
Great Shots, happy Birthday
Thank you!
Congrats! Chicago is on my list also!
Thanks! It's quite a place, you should definitely pay it a visit, I think you'd find plenty of fun stuff to shoot :)
sending love from ecency curation team.
Happy birthday! 😄
What a great choice for celebrating—Chicago is both unique and full of adventures. I’m so glad the weather cooperated and you had your coolest birthday ever!
Chicago really is a beautiful city
Thank you!
It was the best, Chicago was a blast :)
Happy birthday!
It looks like an interesting place to spend them :)
Thank you!
So interesting, so much happening, so many people, so many things to see. Just got back home around midnight and I'm ready to go back, happiest hunting ground I've seen for street photography.
Happy Birthday! I don't know what 'old' is for a young person, so I can't guess at your birthday. I have a son who is fifty and to me he is young :).
Your reference to Haymarket Square and the eight-hour day strikes me. We all learned (I hope) in our history classes about the Progressive Era. We all learned about the Triangle Fire (I hope), and about child labor laws.
More startling was it then when I heard recently a member of the Trump Administration speak disparagingly of the Progressive Era. Damn those taxes that tried to equalize somewhat the burden of public expenditure. Damn those laws that allowed us to directly elect our Senators. Damn those laws that limited the way children could be used in industry. Damn the restrictions on business that allowed unions to flourish.
Damn, in short. the middle class.
Sorry about the rant...it's your birthday 🎂
Thank you! Heh, I didn't expect to make it out of my twenties, so approaching forty seems like a lot :)
Strikes you, eh? 🤣 I wish that was still the case, but there wasn't a whole lot of that sort of learning going on when I was in school. Haymarket, Blair Mountain, the Tulsa Race Massacre, didn't really learn about any of that until I was an adult.
If I'm remembering my headlines correctly, inequality has actually exceeded that of the Gilded Age at this point, so I guess those attitudes shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. They've been doing their best to chip away at the progress made in the Progressive Era for a very long time now, can't help but suspect that we're overdue for a bit of that whole 'history repeats itself' thing.
Honestly, I'm surprised it took them this long to come for the middle class. Between NAFTA, 'right-to-work' laws, and similar nonsense, both parties have been waging war on the working class since at least the 90s.
It's all good, would have been disappointed if the Haymarket Memorial and all didn't spark at least one rant :)
Wow. I didn't realize I said that!😄
Hard to believe you didn't learn these lessons in school. This explains maybe why people are so easily bamboozled today. They don't realize what they have. They don't know how hard it was to get here, how easy it will be to slide back.
You've made me smile more than I expected. I’ve always believed birthdays are less about cake and candles; I remember one of my birthdays where I didn’t throw a party or even go out—I just sat down, wrote a long story. Thanks for sharing.
!PIZZA
Yeah, I'd take walking my feet off over the cake and candles anytime. For me, birthdays are about doing what you enjoy, what you want to do rather than any of the ostensible 'birthday' stuff, writing a story sounds like a good way to spend one to me :)
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@chrysanthemum(1/5) tipped @coloneljethro
Come get MOONed!