St. Patrick's Day on the Green Chicago River

 

The thing I most wanted to do for St. Patrick's Day this year is see the green river in Chicago. Travalon had read that the Chicago River only stays green for a few hours, but he called someone at the boat tour place, and she assured him that it stayed green for several days. Since they dyed it on Saturday, we weren't sure if it would still be green yesterday, but then Travalon had an ingenious idea: we could check the live webcam first thing in the morning. So yesterday morning we got up, and we both looked at the webcam and saw the river was still a bright Kelly green. We meant to get going very early but somehow wasted enough time that Travalon pointed out we could get to 9 am Mass at the church two minutes away. In general we avoid this church, since the people don't seem very friendly, but we went yesterday and missed the opening hymn... and the closing hymn, since we snuck out right after communion and hit the road.

We got to Elk Grove Village just outside of Chicago in time for lunch at an Indian buffet, then we looked into how to take mass transit into the city so we wouldn't have to drive in Chicago traffic and pay Chicago parking prices. We went to the Jefferson Park station and tried to figure out how to take the Metra train, but there was nowhere to buy a ticket. A woman passing by said you had to buy them on the app, so Travalon downloaded the app onto his phone, but he couldn't get it to work. Then two guys said, "Are you trying to get downtown? Go across this bridge to catch the Blue Line." On the bridge were machines to purchase tickets for the L train, so we bought day passes since they were pretty cheap. Then we caught the Blue Line L train, which smelled of urine and cannabis but got us right downtown in twenty minutes. Travalon saw a guy giving him a weird look, but then he realized the guy had a Brentford Bees hat on, and maybe he was looking at Travalon's Wolverhampton hat. Sure enough, they struck up a conversation about the English Premier League until the guy reached his stop.

Our stop, the Washington station, conveniently had a bathroom in an attached mall, but then we weren't sure how to find the river. We asked a couple people and got some conflicting answers, but one guy who really seemed to know gave us a very detailed answer that turned out to be 100% correct. So behold: the green river!

I had originally wanted to go to evening Mass in downtown Chicago, but was I ever glad Travalon had talked me into going in Madison! That meant we had all the time in the world to take an architectural cruise on the green river. It was a very cold day, and it was even colder on the boat, but our guide was a very entertaining young gay guy who really got into telling us about all the beautiful, weird, and even ugly buildings along the river. Here are some highlights - more photos soon!

This pagoda is in Chinatown.

This is some sort of village-within-a-building that contains everything a town would need.

Apparently I was really getting into the talk!

A pair of common mergansers.

I can't explain what's going on here. Keep in mind that it was just above freezing.

After the boat ride, we took a walk along the river and then back to the train station.

The trip back was more crowded, and there were no English Premier League fans... that we know of. In the bridge back to our car, we saw this interesting pigeon.

Oh yeah, the bathroom in the mall at Washington Station was locked by the time we got back, so by the time we got back to Jefferson Park, I really needed to go. We found a nearby Japanese/Thai restaurant, where they had threeks (but I used chopsticks):

This is something I learned from Richard Bonomo: if a fork has four tines, then it stands to reason that something with three tines is a threek. Of course the two brothers who run the restaurant recognized Travalon's Wolverhampton hat, since one was a Manchester United fan, and both of them talked sports with Travalon so I began to wonder if we would ever get home. We did eventually leave, and on the way home we alternated listening to songs we wanted to sing to, like we had on our road trip. 

Today I worked on campus. After walking well over six miles yesterday, and going up eighteen flights of stairs going to and from the riverwalk, I could barely walk today. Oddly, my FitBit said I got lots of active minutes, and even a few vigorous ones despite the fact that I walked so slowly. I guess my heart rate must have gone up from the pain...? Hopefully tomorrow I'm back to what passes for normal at my advanced age.

Famous Hat