Day 346 - FLower Girls

Thought of the day: This afternoon, we took a boat tour to see the famed architecture along the Chicago River. The tour was operated by the Chicago Architectural Foundation whose mission was to educate the public on and help preserve the historical Chicago architecture. The close-up view of the buildings along the river was breathtaking.  The narrator on the boat gave us the history behind many of the buildings. Architecture seemed to convey more meaning when it was associated with people.  For example, when we got to know the intention of the architect or the vision of the original owner, a building became more interesting. In any case, through the narrations of our tour guide, the buildings and the histories behind them came alive in front of our eyes.  The tour also offered a great many opportunities for us to take close-up pictures of bridges and architecture. It was too bad that I didn't have time to take a lake cruise and see the Chicago skyline from distance.  If I ever need a reason to visit Chicago again, this would be a good one - and the other one would be the Chicago Art Institute which I didn't have a chance to step into at all. 

Photo of the day:

One famous place that I did get to visit was the Bean (a.k.a Cloud Gate) in the Millennium Park. A wedding party was there taking photos which gave me a chance to snap this photo of the flower girls.

Day 192 - Wedding

Thought of the day: It was a perfect day in Estes Park.  In the morning, we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked on a short trail to Bear Lake, which was still completely frozen and covered by snow at this time of the year.  And then we hiked on Lumpy Ridge trail in town. The first trail was surrounded by a forest and it was covered by snow and slippery.  It was even snowing when we did the hike.  The second trail was snow-free and dry and ran through some pretty interesting rock formations.  It was nice and sunny when we did that hike.   The two hikes couldn't be more different even though they were just within a short drive from each other.  We literally drove from one climate zone to another in a matter of minutes.  Jasmine and Lila were very excited by the adventure and they both enjoyed climbing up and down the rocks along the Lumpy Ridge Trail.  In the evening, we checked out Rock Inn Restaurant which is a steak house and a popular music venue in Estes Park.  The girls danced an evening away to the merry tunes played by a local musician.

Photo of the day:

A wedding party in Stanley Hotel where we are staying at.  Today must be an auspicious day to get married as we spotted at least 3 wedding parties in the hotel.  Other than weddings, we also counted a lot of elks in RMNP and in town, including a dozen or so munching on the grass right outside of our hotel room.  However, I took a lot more photos of wedding parties  than elks, so the elks would have to wait until our next trip to get on the blog!