Not Taking It For Granted
You know how they say how regrettable it is that you never go see the sights of your hometown until you have out-of-town guests visiting? Not so today.
I shall not take it for granted that I live in a town where they dye the river green to honor St. Patrick's Day. Today three friends and I met up by getting on the El from three different stops to head downtown to see the Chicago River dyed green.
The video below is likely more exciting than what we experienced. Lucky you, you didn't have to stand outside wishing you'd worn your warmer boots, questioning whether that was a snowflake you just saw float by, and curious about how quickly green dye moves block on water. (Verrrry slowly, not helped much by a team of kayakers mixing it up.)
I did have visions of a flowing river, all green from the lake to past the "corn cob towers." But instead, the dye ends up being targeted to a small two block stretch of the river near Michigan Avenue. It only stays that way for about 4 hours too. That was a little disappointing, but also something I never would have known about unless I'd gone to see it in person.
I also did not know, before doing my pre-work for the day, that this is a privately funded initiative, inspired by dye that a plumber once used to detect waste leaks into the river. The whole story of over 40 years of turning the river green, is here.
Now I can move onto the other hometown tourist activities on my list:
- Jane Adams' Hull House
- Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House
- Botanical Gardens (yay spring!)
- Shedd Aquarium
- we also need to get ourselves out to the Wisconsin Dells sometime soon. I had no idea that there was pretty stuff up in Wisconsin, and that it's so relatively close!
I shall not take it for granted that I live in a town where they dye the river green to honor St. Patrick's Day. Today three friends and I met up by getting on the El from three different stops to head downtown to see the Chicago River dyed green.
The video below is likely more exciting than what we experienced. Lucky you, you didn't have to stand outside wishing you'd worn your warmer boots, questioning whether that was a snowflake you just saw float by, and curious about how quickly green dye moves block on water. (Verrrry slowly, not helped much by a team of kayakers mixing it up.)I did have visions of a flowing river, all green from the lake to past the "corn cob towers." But instead, the dye ends up being targeted to a small two block stretch of the river near Michigan Avenue. It only stays that way for about 4 hours too. That was a little disappointing, but also something I never would have known about unless I'd gone to see it in person.
I also did not know, before doing my pre-work for the day, that this is a privately funded initiative, inspired by dye that a plumber once used to detect waste leaks into the river. The whole story of over 40 years of turning the river green, is here.
Now I can move onto the other hometown tourist activities on my list:
- Jane Adams' Hull House
- Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House
- Botanical Gardens (yay spring!)
- Shedd Aquarium
- we also need to get ourselves out to the Wisconsin Dells sometime soon. I had no idea that there was pretty stuff up in Wisconsin, and that it's so relatively close!
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