Hello Chicago

 

I arrived in Chicago yesterday afternoon and was somewhat overwhelmed by the crowds of people.  I'm used to Chicago being a busy city but the crowds do seem exceptional. Apparently there is a jazz fest going on and it is a holiday weekend too.  

This is the view from my hotel window.  A very pleasant view indeed.

The Magnificent Mile Association is sponsoring and art exhibit of sculptures by Carole Feuerman so Michigan Avenue is dotted with a series of swimmer themed sculptures.  

I'm sure I'll run into a few more over the next few days.  

Chicago Bound

 

Sometime around 3:00 PM (central time) today, I'll be walking through this hallway at O'Hare International Airport.  I'm going to spend just a few days in Chicago with my good friends David and Riley.  

We have a variety of plans that include food, laughs and revisiting old haunts.  Twenty-eight years ago, David and I worked on a long-term project that had us living in Chicago for two and a half years.  We loved every minute of it.  

If everything works out as planned, photos will follow. Stay tuned.

Exciting and New

 When I was at Scottsdale Fashion Square on Thursday I discovered a treasure trove of new and exciting restaurants.  I decided that I need to try them all in the near future but I started with this one.  Society Swan is an American brasserie.  I had lunch there and enjoyed an excellent French Onion Soup.

Across from Society Swan is a Spanish restaurant called Teleferic.  They specialize in Spanish tapas and they also sell a variety of imports from Spain.

Elephante is an Italian themed restaurant.  I will look forward to trying some of their pasta dishes.

Din Tai Fung is an Asian restaurant specializing in Xiao Long Bao or Chinese dumplings.  I peeked inside this place a saw a really gorgeous dining room.

This last one is called Catch and is obviously a seafood restaurant.  All of these are located close together at the street level of the mall which doesn't get the normal shopping center traffic.  I had not seen or heard of any of these before so I'm not sure how long they've been there but with all the remodeling and changes to Scottsdale Fashion Square, I'm guessing they are all pretty new.

Unique Window Display

 

It turns out that Thursday is a good day to go shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square.  There was hardly anyone there.  I passed by the Louis Vuitton store and noticed a very clever set of window displays.  Using these cute wind-up toys that were made to look like antique toys.

I apologize for all the reflections in these shots but they were all shot through the windows.  I thought about going into the store to get the shots but that was way too intimidating.  They take down your information at the door before they let you in.  

I love this bellman carrying the bags.

Whoever does the window displays for Louis Vuitton is very creative person.  They are always fascinating to see.

It looks like Blogger is having a problem with the commenting piece.  I can't seem to comment on many of your blogs and it looks like many of you can't comment on mine. Hopefully that will get fixed sometime soon.

Summer Light Experience

 

Monday's unexpected storm gave me the perfect opportunity to do that night time stroll at the Desert Botanical Garden so I could see the full light experience that has been created for hot summer months.  The sky was still full of clouds so I was hoping for a nice sunset but this display made up for the weak sunset.  The combination of the green lights and purple lights makes for a perfect scene.

I loved the way the this tall saguaro looked with the colored lights shining and those small lights surrounding it.

Those metallic discs that I photographed a month ago look completely different at night.  They have lights shining on them so they create all kinds of light patterns on the big open space in front.  They combined that with some disco music playing and they've created a sort of dance floor environment.

This is the spot where I often photograph birds getting a drink in the water feature that surrounds the spot.  I had to stand awfully close to a prickly cactus to catch that reflection in the water to the left.

A Walk in the Rain

 

I was doing a little happy dance on Monday morning when I woke up to very heavy, gray skies.  By 6:30 AM it was pouring down rain.  What a wonderful surprise.  And a surprise it certainly was, I had checked my weather app Sunday evening and saw that predictions were for more extreme heat.  

The minute the rain slowed to just a sprinkle, I went out for a short walk.  I wanted to take full advantage of the 79 degree (26C) temperature.  

By the time I got back home, my hair and clothes were wet.  It felt so good!

Theme Day: Travel

 

No matter what mode of transportation you choose, get out there and see the world.  Travel plays an important role in my life and I know it does for many of you too.  Travel is the September 1st theme for City Daily Photo Bloggers and I chose this set of different forms of transportation to emphasize the subject.  Go by plane....

...train...

...or automobile!  Don't worry, it doesn't have to be a Rolls Royce.  Any car ready for the open road will do.

And let's not forget travel by sea.  A favorite option for many people.

To see other City Daily Photo Blogger's travel expressions, click here.

Tradition to Abstraction

 

Here is another set from the archives.  Back in the spring of 2009 when the first Chihuly exhibit left the Desert Botanical Garden, the next exhibit arrived in November of that year.  The new exhibit featured the sculptures of Native American artist Allan Houser.  The exhibit contained some very traditional sculpture along with many abstract sculptures.  The one above had central position at the garden visible as you entered.  It is called Spirit of the Wind.

This sculpture was positioned along the wildflower trail.  It depicts two woman having a conversation and is appropriately called Dialogue.  

This last one was a more traditional sculpture and it is called Warm Springs Apache Man.  This exhibit remained at the garden until the end of spring 2010 and was just as popular as the Chihuly exhibit.   

Desert Snow and Prickly Pears

 

I spent most of my day yesterday doing a major clear-out.  My clear-out started as a minor search for something but it rapidly grew into a much bigger project.  Consequently, I didn't have anything new to post so I looked back at the photos I took when I visited the Desert Botanical Garden back in July.  Above is a plant called a Desert Snow bush. It does look like a patch of snow in amongst the greenery.

I also took this photo of a prickly pear cactus with lots of colorful fruit on it.  I framed it so that memorial wall was in the background.  I wrote about that wall back in 2019 and included both day and night photos of it.

Lunar Eclipse Surprise

 

It was "champagne Thursday" a couple of days ago and I was enjoying an evening of champagne, sushi and conversation at my friend Glenda's house.  Dave (Glenda's son-in-law) had joined us and when afterward Dave and I were heading to our cars, he mentioned that there was supposed to be a lunar eclipse that night.  So I stopped in my tracks and looked up at the sky and sure enough, the eclipse was happening as we were standing there.  

I only had my cell phone so I didn't think there was much chance of getting a decent shot but I was pleasantly surprised.  I adjusted the exposure on the phone and this one turned out pretty good.  You can see the shadow over the moon had covered all but the very edge.  

What a great way to top off champagne Thursday!

Lots of Wind, No Rain

 

We've had lots of wind and clouds lately but still no measurable rain.  Looking at my weather app on my phone is getting kind of depressing.  It's stuck in "extreme heat" mode with the occasional dust storm.  I'm hoping the heat spell breaks sometime soon!

Pretty Flowers

 

I have three more photos today that keep popping up on that little gadget on my laptop's desktop.  I was sure that this one got posted back in 2013 when I took the photo but I can't find it.  It's too pretty to ignore.

Here's another one that pops up often that I thought I had posted. It was taken in 2009 and is part of those photos I've been trying to correct the dates on.

Here's an unusual looking flower that Google identifies as Ranunculus asiaticus or buttercup.  It's another one that pops up every now and then and it was taken in 2012.

I love seeing these long-gone beauties!

Revisiting 2009

 

I spent quite a bit of time over last weekend working on my photo files.  I think I mentioned before that when I bought my first Macbook back in 2011, the Apple Store techs transferred all my photos over to the new laptop from my very old Dell laptop.  In doing so, they lost quite a bit of the metadata from my photos.  A big chunk of my photos all have a date of July 20, 2011.

I've been trying to reconstruct some of those dates as best I can by looking at what I posted during 2009, 2010 and 2011.  It's tedious but it gives me something to do when it's too hot to be outside.

While doing that, I found several photos from that very first Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden back in 2009.  These are glass sculptures that I don't think ever got posted.

I especially liked this orange one.  It makes me think of an orange-flavored dessert of some kind.

All three of these were located in the covered cactus garden.

I know I'm never going to get all the dates right on these old photos but they will be close.  

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

 

We've had a lot of cloudy nights lately and some of them bring lightening displays but unfortunately, very little rain.  The top photo was take a week ago when there was lots of lightening flashing around under the clouds.

The photo to the left I took last Thursday evening when I was heading home from a friend's house.  I almost deleted it but, after looking at it a while I decided I liked it.  It seems to express that classic saying "it was a dark and stormy night" perfectly.  

Southwestern Wildlife

 

I haven't seen a lot of new murals lately but I did spot this utility box over the weekend depicting some desert wildlife.  On this side was a spiny-tailed iguana.

On one of the narrow sides was this Arizona gray squirrel.

On the side facing the street was a great horned owl.

On the other narrow side was a pair of battling hummingbirds.  

It appears the artist here is R Squared.  

Taking part in Monday Murals.

Nice Sunset, No Rain

 

As I was driving to my friends Julie and Dave's house Friday evening, I saw promising clouds in the south eastern sky.  It looked as if a storm might be forming with the possibility of some rain.  However by the time the sun was setting, the clouds had thinned leaving us with a colorful sunset but no rain.  

The view to the northwest was especially nice.

Even the view directly north was looking very pretty.  Pretty sunsets are always welcome but we really could use some rain.  

Party Wagon

 

I wanted to do some shopping at a specific store that is located in north Scottsdale so I braved the extreme heat and drove out that way. On the way, I spotted this hot pink vehicle parked in a shopping center parking lot.  So, I stoped to get a photo of it.  That is a vehicle built for partying. 

It's such a long drive out to Kierland Commons that I was hoping I'd see other things to photograph along the way but the heat was just too intense.  By the time I parked my car at my destination and then walked to the store, I was exhausted.  So I did my shopping and made my way back to the car and headed home.  This was all before noon.  It's simply too hot to be outside right now.  As I get older, I have less and less tolerance for this heat.

Boxes and Dust

 

I was doing some dusting last weekend when it occurred to me that I've accumulated a collection of boxes in a variety of shapes and sizes.  I don't actually collect boxes but it seems that I have purchased a few that have caught my eye.  The ones in the photo above are the oldest.  I bought both of these on my very first trip to Europe back in 1985.  Both were purchased in Germany.

These two were purchased closer to home and approximately 12 to 15 years ago.  They are both made of glass.  The black one I got at a street craft festival and the one with the shell embedded in it I found at a gem and mineral show in Tucson.

This last one was purchased in Costa Rica in 2007.  It's made of wood native to that country.  

Wednesday evening I got one of those noisy, emergency notices on my phone because of a dust storm.  When I checked outside, it was calm but I did see some clouds in the east.  It took 30 minutes for the storm to reach my place and once it did, the wind rattled the windows and blew things around for another 30 minutes.  The storm brought some rain too but not enough to make a difference.

All that dust blowing around will make it necessary to do some more dusting.  In the desert, there is no escaping the dust.