Foggy Chicago
We've spent a lot of time here and elsewhere talking about the City, mostly covering the downtown, which isn't entirely unknown to the rest of the world. As we get tired of talking about the downtown, we'll start to branch out; for example, we're going to White Sox game on April 26th. We've haven't yet become too jaded with the downtown (will we ever?), so here's yet another post: Chicago in the FOG!
My (Ben) parents were in town for the weekend (next to last weekend of March) from Cadillac, MI, and that gave us an excuse to go downtown. We had hoped for good weather, but it's spring, and as we say in the midwest, "you don't like the weather today, wait until tomorrow." Our reflection in the blob at Millenium Park tells
the story. Sometime early Saturday morning, the fog rolled in as thick as pea soup, as they say. The four people in the middle (see above) are my mom, my dad, Keren, and me. We're facing north, with the Art Museum behind us (shrouded in fog) and Michigan Ave. to the left of the picture. The entire downtown was ghostly. The fog muffled the traffic and shortened visibility to a 100, making it seem as if we were on an island.
Over near the lake, the docks seemed to vanish in the mist. Ever read the The Mist by Stephen King? Spooky.
By far the coolest thing was the view from atop the Hancock Tower (below). Looking south from Hancock, you can see that
the fog stops at about the 70th or 80th floor of Sears Tower (right). The Aon building sticks up above the fog too, but other than that, you would never know the rest of downtown was there. It looks like two or three lone buildings on a pillowy landscape, something like the Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back.
Enough of the fog. After gawking at it all day Saturday, we decided to do some stuff on Sunday, since Sunday was much nicer. Sunny and 65 F. We visited the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Museum of Science and Industry. My only reference points for the zoo are the Detroit Zoo and the Toledo Zoo. Lincoln Park had better monkeys and was free, but those were the only two things it had on either of the other two. I'm told there's another zoo west of town, the Brookfield Zoo, that is supposed to be pretty awesome.
We didn't spend much time and the Museum of Science and Industry. I think their model railroad exhibit was my favorite, but we had to leave because of all the drinking that needed to be done. We took my parents to Hopleaf, one of our favorite watering holes, and ended the night arguing about politics at Charlie's Alehouse. I was too drunk to remember much about it. Someday we'll have to start a separate post about beer in Chicago.
the pictures we took that day are here
4 comments:
That foggy day made me think about what would life be like if we had fog all the time. (except for the obvious spookiness, and the benefit of not having to be shocked by everything i touch!). Ben suggested that there would be no astronomers, since we would never be able to see that there are stars in the sky... I thought that life would have adapted to see THROUGH the fog, with infrared abilities. The stars would be visible from the high mountains (that we will hardly even know about...) and the trees will either have to grow tall above the fog, or work out a way to use the very little UV rays that will penetrate the fog.
What do you think?
If in weather we are talking about, here is some of my outdoor activity: flood hunting.
It is not as dengarus as it sounds, but it is just something which is amazing do see.
Unfontunently, there it is not possible that we will be able to see a flood on september - it is only 35 C when you'll be here.
So, this is a lonk to the photos we took.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/526275/havarim_river_after_flood/
And here are two videos:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/526700/havarim_flood2/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/526275/havarim_river_after_flood/
I think the fog would also greatly reduce the amount of solar energy that reached the earth's surface. Maybe there would be less life in general, lower mutation rates (if UV is a significant cause of mutation) and evolution would have gone slower.
There would also be less oil in the ground too. It would be pretty hard to fuel cars.
The long-term climate would be weird too. The fog would cool the earth to freezing, then precipitate out of the air, allowing more sunlight to reach the surface and reheating the precipitated fog, possibly recreating the fog.
I could spend all day making stuff up about this...what fun!
Worst of all in that perpetual fog--some of us would have permanently fuzzy hair.
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