September 16th 2009
On Wednesday we headed north of downtown Chicago up to Lincoln Park, a really nice leafy suburb with a university. We sat by the lily pond in the park and enjoyed our picnic lunch.
Then we headed into the park zoo which is free. We didn’t stay in the zoo for long, it was like something out of the dark ages. Having visited places like Marwell where the animals have large areas to use this was really sad because all the big cats we saw just had small cages and were all pacing back and forth. It was too upsetting to stay so we left having only seen the cats.
We crossed the park to Fullerton beach where we enjoyed a quick afternoon cat nap on the sand (which we were covered in for the rest of the afternoon!).
Then we walked back down the lakeshore path to downtown where on spotting a Cheesecake Factory we just had to pop in for a slice, one between two was definately enough though. Cherry cheesecake - yummy! This was on the Magnificent Mile, a shopping area of Chicago where all the big designer names have shops, from Armani to Tiffany, Saks to Macy’s. Halfway down the street is the famous Chicago landmark, the watertower, which was the only building to survive the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and is currently used for various temporary exhibitions.
At 8pm we went to Millenium Park to check out the fireworks off Navy Pier in honour of all US military personnel. Fireworks were fab, but suspect we may see bigger and better somewhere later on in our trip ;).
We wanted to check out a proper Chicago club, so we headed off to Buddy Guy’s Legends where Linsey Alexander was playing.
This sixty something performer who has played with people like BB King and Johnny Taylor introduced himself as the Hoochy man. “They call me coffee, but it ain’t ‘cos I’m black, it’s ‘cos I grind real fine!”, the music and atmosphere were excellent with the Hoochy man playing “his own shit”, a real mix of R&B and blues.
Then, close to midnight, a real treat, Buddy Guy himself (with whom Linsey Alexander has also played in the past) decided he wanted a piece of the action and took to the stage with the band to perform a number. Apparently, he doesn’t normally do this and when he does perform his gigs are sold out weeks in advance (his are the only performances you can actually buy advance tickets for). All in all a great evening.
