Lens-Artists: My Favorite Things

My Favorite Things is the subject of Lens-Artists’ photo challenge this week. I love cats, especially my sweet tortie Hazel. I love flowers and enjoy taking good photos of them. There is plenty of this subject matter at Chicago Botanic Gardens! This is their May foxglove display. My favorite thing in the world is traveling, […]

Thursday Doors: Sigma Alpha Epsilon National Headquarters (OHC 2018)

During Open House Chicago 2018, we visited several sites in Evanston, including the national headquarters of the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Regardless of my personal opinion of this fraternity’s history of hazing (for which it has been disciplined at least nine times) as well as of fraternities in general, the headquarters building is an austere […]

Thursday Doors: Lake Street Church (OHC 2018, Part 7)

During the weekend of Open House Chicago (Oct. 13-14, 2018), we visited another of the Evanston sites, Lake Street Church. Although founded as Evanston Baptist Church in 1858, according to their welcome brochure, Lake Street Church is now a “progressive community of spiritual seekers from across multiple denominations” and is “rooted in the free-church tradition,” […]

First Presbyterian Church of Evanston – Open House Chicago 2018, Part 5

One of the most beautiful churches in Evanston, particularly its stained glass windows, is the First Presbyterian Church, which we visited during Open House Chicago 2018 in mid-October. The architect of this building was Daniel H. Burnham, the same man who made Chicago famous for the design of the White City during the World’s Columbian […]

Open House Chicago 2018-Part 2

This post continues our brief tour of Open House Chicago 2018. The second building we toured was right across the street from the Gunder House. It is the Conway House, now the property of Sacred Heart Schools as the Driehaus Center. The home was designed by the architect William Carbys Zimmerman in the Tudor-Revival style, […]

Open House Chicago 2018-Part 1

Open House Chicago is an annual event – on a weekend in mid-October, about 250 buildings in the Chicago area are open to visitors. Each has a few volunteers who can tell you about the building. It is sometimes called the “architecture tour” because many of these buildings were built 100+ years ago and some […]

Lens-Artists Challenge: Windows

The theme this week for Lens Artists’ Weekly Photo Challenge is windows. Mormon church – Salt Lake City, Utah Trigger – photography studio and wedding venue, Chicago, IL Northlight Theatre, Skokie, IL – with sculpture in front Bike frames in a window, Chicago, IL Inspirational message on the rear window of a parked car, Arlington […]

Thursday Doors: The Richards House B&B

The Richards House is a Bed and Breakfast lodging in Dubuque, Iowa. I reserved online in advance and had no idea what it would look like, but I guess I imagined a sunny white or yellow house with a fancy sign out front. Instead, when we arrived at the address at dusk, my heart sank. […]

Cee’s Oddball Challenge

Cee is back with her oddball challenge! I was scrolling through some old photos looking for something and came across this. I saw it in front of someone’s house in Minocqua, Wisconsin. It was so weird I had to take a picture of it! A discarded item by the curb on trash day (Des Plaines) […]

Getting Our Kicks in Santa Fe (Route 66 Day 6, Pt. 1): Cathedral and Burro Alley

June 12, 2018 We spent the morning in Santa Fe before hitting the road toward Amarillo. First, we went back to the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi to see the interior. The cathedral was built by Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy between 1869 and 1886. There had been two previous churches on the same site, […]