After a few housebound weeks in Illinois’ sub-freezing winter weather, a thirty-six degree day felt positively balmy. Although the weatherman called for yet another dreary, overcast day, no snow or freezing rain was forecast, so I seized the opportunity to visit the Morton Arboretum, a 1,700-acre park in the Chicago’s western suburbs. The Arboretum was … Read more
car ni val (kar nuh vuhl) noun a season or festival of merrymaking before Lent an instance of merrymaking, feasting, or masquerading an instance of riotous excess a traveling enterprise offering amusement an organized program of entertainment or exhibition, as in a festival, traveling amusement show, rides, a program of sports, any merrymaking or revelry, … Read more
Travel Insights 100, a panel of travel experts selected by UpTake.com (the travel search engine that helps travelers decide where to go, where to stay, or what to do) were recently asked to name the dumbest moments in travel during 2009 (author’s update: Uptake.com subsequently shut down operations and sold their site to Groupon). The … Read more
They say all things come full circle. In September of 1969, I hopped aboard the Red Line of the EL and rode down the Dan Ryan Expressway for my first day at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The neighborhood around Roosevelt and Halstead Streets was not safe in those days. One block south was … Read more
By now you have probably all seen this, especially since the artist has been on the talk show circuit, but on the off chance that you’ve been living in a cave, I offer the following video, produced by musician Dave Carroll. While sitting on a United plane awaiting takeoff, Carroll saw luggage handlers tossing his … Read more
