Random photos of life and times...

Lake Michigan calm as a pond... NOT typical in November...

miles and miles of empty sandy beaches- of course the temps were a bit nippy!

Amazingly clear fresh water lake.

Stopped to stretch our legs at the beautiful Sarett Nature Center on the way back to Chicago.

We surprised a beautiful white tailed deer just a few feet from us, but she was long gone by the time I got the camera focused...

Back to the city though in time for Thanksgiving holiday preparations!

Everyone enjoyed the turkey!

Poem: Chicago by Carl Sandburg

CHICAGO

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

by Carl Sandburg (1878- 1967)

Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on January 6, 1878. He became an editorial writer for the Chicago Daily News. Sandburg was recognized as a member of the Chicago literary renaissance, which included Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters. Sandburg became known for his free verse poems celebrating industrial and agricultural America, American geography and landscape, and the American common people. In the 1930s, Sandburg continued his celebration of America with the second part of his Lincoln biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for his Complete Poems in 1950. Carl Sandburg died in 1967.

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I am here safe and sound and getting my bearings. I will update soon. Welcome to Chicago!

Dekapenthimero (δεκαπενθήμερο)

Dekapenthimero (δεκαπενθήμερο) means fifteen days. T will be gone for fifteen days and I will be on my own with the dog, the cats and the grapes.

Early this morning, I drove T to the "Ioannis Kapodistrias" airport. (5:30 AM IS early.) It was surprisingly busy and teeming with people arriving, and a fleet of charter buses loading up to carry them all, well, elsewhere (wherever they cart tourist en mass off to... hotels, holiday villages, Aqualand??).

Meanwhile T has a long day ahead of him. First he flies to Athens (1 hour) then from there (after a minor 3 hour wait) direct to New York (11 hours!) From New York, (after a 2 hour wait), he connects to his last flight of the day to Chicago (another 3 hours flying time) he arrives at 7 pm local time, warmly greeted by strong son to tackle suitcase and cart him off to apartment with guest room. So after 20 hours of traveling time he will be able to finally rest his weary bones

HA! I have no doubt that it will easily be another 3 or 4 hours as collecting luggage from and then getting out of O'Hare Airport is no quick trick! Then too there will be the general greeting of family and probably meal of some sort. Plus he will have caught his second or third wind and hold together for a while anyway.

On the one hand I envy him seeing everyone, on the other hand I really feel for him and his weary bones! As a former world traveling mega star, T (in his previous pre- "retired" life) has learned how to conserve his energy. He is one of the few people who, shortly after he straps himself into the seat, can automatically fall asleep, making him the least fun person to sit next to if you happen to be a chatty individual.

We once counted the number of countries he worked in and traveled to and came up with 60. He's flown pretty much every airline (and many that no longer exist) and is very familiar with the artificial existence of life on board an airplane for long haul flights. He's had many adventures; some interesting, some baffling, a few scary, and a couple downright dangerous. But that is all thankfully in the past. Now he's just going for family sake. Now he only travels because he wants to travel, not because he has to travel.

Still, travel isn't as much fun as it used to be. Now it's all about the destination I suppose But in another time, "travel" used to be as much about the journey as the destination.


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